


Don't Take That Sinner From Me

by emmawalters



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Genderfluid Character, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5671768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmawalters/pseuds/emmawalters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Persephone thought she was cunning, tricking the King of the Underworld to marry her so she could escape her mother's controlling personality. But the world has always been more complicated than she could anticipate, and 100 years later, she strikes a deal with her mother: If she, after 5,000 years of separation, still loves Hades the same, with the same intensity and depth, she never has to return home for the summer. </p><p>5,000 years later, Persephone has taken on the name Will, and he eagerly his reunion with his husband, unaware that his mother Alana always has another trick up her sleeve. </p><p>(Hannibal just wants his wife back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be real with you all, I only SORT OF know where this is going. Like, less than basic plot outline going on here  
> but i've got the first two chapters done and I'm half way through the third so I figure, what the hell?  
> Also a big thanks to aglassroseneverfades for looking over this and correcting things and reassuring me that I wasn't messing everything up!  
> The title song is Devil's Backbone by The Civil Wars, and the chapter title is from Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine.

_This was all an awful lot of trouble for her, she thought idly. Hades couldn’t stop staring at her, Demeter couldn’t stop staring at her, and they both couldn’t stop shouting at each other._

_“She’s just a child!” Her mother screams, hands balled into fists and voice so loud the whole Earth shakes._

_“A child who made a choice,” Hades reminds her. “I would have let her go, after the first seed. I even told her what the next one would mean. She chose to eat it of her own free will.” He shrugs, much more nonchalant about the exchange. Idly, she wonders what married life with him will be like. Even if it is awful, it will be preferable to living under her mother’s thumb. This is part petulance and part desperation. She is tired of being locked inside the house._

_“No doubt after you created some insurmountable trial that would prevent her from ever truly leaving, Hades! This is shockingly rude!” Persephone rolls her eyes at this. Hades had offered to walk her to the door, after all. How lonely must he be, she wondered? Did he yearn to share the open space of the underworld with someone as much as she yearned for open space at all? Or did he feel caged down here, as she felt caged at home?_

_“I would hardly try to force her to stay here. Prisoners, much like the dead, make poor company. You of all people should know I prefer my company to be more engaging.” This is a statement Persephone ponders. Why would her mother know such a thing? The implication there is something she chooses not to think about for now._

_“And my only daughter happens to be the only company you find engaging enough?”_

_This, Persephone supposes, is where the problem lies. She is, in fact, her mother’s only child. In a sense. There was mention of a horse, somewhere, but they’ve agreed it’s best not to speak of that._

_“She has thus far exceeded all of my expectations.” Persephone finds herself blushing at this. Hades looks her way, as if expecting a reaction, and she imagines that the smile on his face is because of the color on her cheeks._

_“What is to become of her when she no longer does, Hades? When she disappoints you, will you send her back, leave her broken? Or will you warp her into mindless perfection, just for you?” Hades scoffs at the idea, and she’s comforted by how instinctual the reaction seems to feel. It’s not a calculated move, and she’s grateful for that._

_“Hardly. Now, Demeter, we can work out all the particulars on a later date, perhaps when tempers are cooler. For now, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.” Hades waves his hand idly towards her mother, and in a puff of smoke, she vanishes, his eyes turning to meet her gaze._

 

- 

 

Will likes Wolf Trap. He likes the way he’s shaped his body, flat planes and hairy legs. Alana was furious, when he chose the change about three centuries ago. For all Will really talks to his mother, she could still be furious. Five millennia hadn’t been enough to fully erase the animosity between them. Because of Alana, because of his mother and the terms she chose, knowingly cruel, he is lonely. Dogs surround him as he climbs from bed, excited to meet him and indifferent that their master is married to the king of the Underworld. The love he feels for them is not unlike the love he feels for Hades, in that it is unconditional, but it is certainly much simpler. 

With his pets all settled, Will has a moment to think. He knows the end of his test is over soon, but with how the centuries blurred, he can’t be certain of the year, let alone the day, that it will end. Every morning he wakes, hoping that today might be the day, and every night he climbs into bed surrounded by dogs and burdened by his disappointment. 

It’s unlikely that he will every forgive his mother for this. 

 

- 

 

_As Hades determines the terms of her life, fighting her mother tooth and nail for her rights, Persephone finds herself wandering. She knows she is heading towards the entrance to the Underworld, but she has no desire to leave. Instead, it is something that Hades said, merely in passing, that has her eager to see if her suspicions are correct._

_Turning the corner, she begins to hear the flow of the Styx before she sees it, and instantly after, she is tackled to the ground. Paws resting on her chest, tongue lapping at her face, Persephone laughs, sticking one hand into long fur and reaching the other up to scratch behind the dog’s ear._

_“Well hello there,” she mutters to the animal, pushing herself to sit and pulling the large dog into her lap._

_Large might even be an understatement, she ponders. It’s a wonder she wasn’t injured when she was tackled, as the dog seems to be as big as she is, fur black as the night sky during a new moon and eyes like warm honey. The dog so suitably distracts her that she doesn’t even hear when Hades and Demeter approach behind her. The hand that rests on her shoulder shocks her, and she whips around. Hades is smiling down at her, cheekbones sharper than knives and eyes fond._

_“I see you’ve met Cerberus,” he says, seemingly unconcerned to find her at the exit to his realm. Negotiations went well, then, she hopes. Shoulders lax and smile gentle, Hades is a picture of serenity._

_Demeter clears her throat, looking her only daughter over and clenching her jaw._

_“I’ll see you in the spring,” her mother tells her, voice clipped and words said with almost no fondness. Persephone isn’t offended. There has always been a sort of animosity between them, although she has never known why. Now, she hopes she’ll never have to know._

 

- 

 

Teaching at the FBI Academy isn’t the most rewarding job he’s had during his time on Earth, but it’s perhaps the one he’s become the most invested in. He’d wanted to be a field agent, to get up close and personal with the souls his husband would soon be seeing, but teaching is something else entirely. So many mortals, determined to make a difference, unaware that most of them will never make a profound change. 

No, instead, they will change people’s lives. Not overly important, in the grand scheme of things, but Will thinks it’s much more important on another level. Will wishes they didn’t strive for such impossible heights; perhaps they would find greater happiness and fulfillment that way. Having never been mortal, though, he can hardly say this with any certainty. 

As class is dismissed, Jack Crawford walks into his office and Will holds in a sigh. 

“Mr. Graham,” Jack says, forgoing a greeting. He wonders briefly if Jack knows who he is. They haven’t seen each other since he was she, since he was Persephone. So many names ago, so many thousands of years. Does Jack know that he’s staring at his son? 

He puts on his glasses quickly, mindful to maintain the illusion he’s built around himself. If Alana hasn’t seen fit to share the information, Willisn’t going to. 

“I’m Special Agent Jack Crawford. I lead the Behavioral Science Unit.”

_No shit,_ Will thinks, but instead says simply, “We’ve met.”

From there, Jack lacks subtlety in getting to his point. Will already knows what he wants. It’s the same thing everyone wants, in this century. Not long ago, from his frame of time, he was nearly burned at the stake for the gifts of his marriage, and now everyone wants to see his party trick, wants to use it to solve their petty crimes, make their lives easier. And Will does it, too. After all, by doing so, he can make a mortal’s life better, even save some. There are people who don’t deserve to die yet, people who are too good for his husband. He does what he can to make sure those people stay alive. 

“Can I borrow your imagination?” Jack asks, even though they both know it’s unnecessary. Will Graham may largely be a construction, a small piece of who he once was, expanded upon so no one sees too close, but he has a reputation, and friends. Unlike past roles, Will Graham is one he enjoys playing. 

 

- 

 

_With a gentle hand on the small of her back, Hades leads her through the underworld. He has many stories to share, likely from all the time he has spent here. She stays quiet, not because she feels she needs to, but instead because she knows he is avoiding something. Eyes alight with curiosity, she stares up at him, watching his lips move and his gaze wander. While the hand he has on her is lax, his other hand is clenched._

Perhaps, _she thinks,_ negotiations did not go as well as she thought. 

_Eventually, he pauses, meeting her stare with a look of his own._

_“Your mother threatened to prevent anything from growing on Earth, were she not allowed to see you for half the year. I believed you would find that unpleasant, so I relented to her demand. Forgive me if I was incorrect.” Persephone smiles weakly, grabbing his clenched hand and holding it between her own. It was not what she wanted, but that he cared for her wishes warms her heart._

_“You were not mistaken,” she tells him, finding it easier to look at his hand in hers than at his face. “I appreciate that you relented on my behalf.” The hand on the small of her back moves up to her chin, gently raising her head._

_“I was honest, when I said you had exceeded all of my expectations. I would give you the world, were it within my power, my darling.” As he removes his hand from her face, she looks toward the ground instinctively, eyes closing and cheeks tinting. “I would give you anything your heart desired.”_

_For a moment, Persephone can think of nothing she would like. But as she stares at the scars on his hands and wonders how her received them, she knows there is something she would like._

_“I would like very much to understand death. To understand life. To understand people. Mother kept me locked away often, away from the world. If I cannot see it all with you, I’d like to be able to understand it, see the world from their eyes.”_

_Hades eyes are warm, his smile serene, and she knows that she has again exceeded his expectations. Perhaps he had been expecting her to ask for riches, for beautiful gifts and luxurious clothes. These things mean little to her, though, in a world where too much knowledge is still left to be sought. She has half the year on the surface, where she can read every book imaginable and study the people around her. She will not waste it. Nor will she waste her time with her husband by forever keeping her head in a book._

 

- 

 

Minnesota is boring and routine, just another series of days and another series of bodies. Elise Nichols laying in her bed is a slight surprise, but it’s one he should have seen coming. The real surprise is Beverly Katz, who finds him interesting not because of his gift but instead because of his work. She asks if he’s unstable, as if they are old friends meeting again after years apart. She is mortal, but Will likes her, if not because of her mortality then at least in spite of it. 

The best thing to come out of his trip to Minnesota, though, is Winston. While no dog could ever replace Cerberus, with his loyalty, his strength, and his impossible size, Will has not stopped trying. Nine dogs is a large number, sure, but in some ways, they are all he has. Hades is far away underground, unreachable until the test his mother set for them is through. 

When he awakes from his night terror, he wishes strong arms were there to hold him close, to soothe the dark side of his marital gift. Will thinks, perhaps, that Hades may have seen this particular side effect coming. Likely, he had intended for it to draw them closer. In some ways, it had. 

They are no longer the horror that they once were. Instead, they serve as a reminder that no matter where he goes, a piece of Hades, a piece of darkness, will always be with him. 

Changing his shirt, he lays a towel down and wills himself to fall back asleep, all thoughts of Elise Nichols floating corpse banished from his mind. 

 

- 

 

_Hades spends the entirety of the next week asking about her. It makes her wish desperately that there was more to tell. Demeter let her out of her sight so little that she is sheltered, and she is aware of this. It is, she believes, her greatest flaw._

_“It’s unfortunate, of course,” he tells her from his seat across their table. “But perhaps it is best to see the opportunity it creates. Now, I can show you the world, through the eyes of the dead. They have such great clarity, I find, as if in death they are allowed to see things that could not see in life. Perhaps you could practice on them, and begin to develop your skill at reading the world.”_

 

- 

 

When he first chose to work in law enforcement, standing in an autopsy room was a dreaded experience. He felt close to his husband, when in the presence of the dead, and that was, by and large, the problem. So far from his husband, it was a common occurrence for his anguish at their separation to become physical pain. A bottle of Aspirin sat ever present in his pocket, for when memories of their winters grew too clear, when all he wanted was to retire to his room and cry centuries of unwept tears. 

The pain he felt in the morgue had lessened, the more time he spent in them. Now, it was nothing more than a dull ache, ever present but simple to ignore. Beverly is talking with the other two, Price and Zeller, when she says something that makes him think. 

“Curly piece of metal is all we got,” she tells them, a small smile on her lips. But how did the metal get there, he thinks? Thinking back to what the composition of the metal was, a side-note of the report Beverly handed him when he entered the room, Will knows.

“We should be looking at plumbers, steamfitters, tool-workers.” The type of tools required to cut a metal of that strength weren’t something a normal person would have. They were highly specialized, expensive tools. Construction sites, factories, they would have the tools needed. They wouldn’t find their killer working on anything in his garage, at least. 

Elise Nichols is there only for a moment, hung by antlers and hair falling in her face. The presentation was almost artful, and Will knows Hades would approve. 

He also knows he shouldn’t be seeing it. Night terrors were common, but hallucinations? 

Despite their animosity, he was going to need to talk to Alana. Was he finally cracking, after almost five thousand years of separation? Was he finally going mad, from the death he had been exposing himself to? 

When Zeller mentions that the liver was returned to Elise Nichols body, he becomes aware of another truth. 

“Something was wrong with the meat,” he whispers. 

“She has liver cancer,” Zeller tells him, and Will doesn’t need to look up to know that the man is shocked. _Of course no bodies have turned up,_ he thinks. _There’s nothing left of the bodies to find._

“He’s eating them.”

 

- 

 

_Persephone thought the largest hardship of her time in the underworld would be her meals. This is hardly the case, though, as she watches Hades lead her to the dining room. While he was cooking dinner, he had insisted that she peruse the library, familiarizing herself with the books. Instead of reading them, she held them in her hands, trying to conjure up images of Hades reading them, flipping through their pages with reverence and care. Only on the oldest and most worn books could she see more than a haze of action, but with practice, she believed she could coax clear pictures from them all._

_Before she even examines the food, she call smell it, spiced and sweet, He shares the name with her as he pulls out her chair, but she doesn’t recognize the language, let alone understand the meaning behind the words. Likely it is something he learned from one of his subjects._ How much of his knowledge comes from the dead, _she wonders, but decides not to ask. The answer is hardly important._

_“Did you enjoy the library?” He asks, voice sincere, and still, weeks in, she is surprised at how he cares for her. She had not expected him to be so kind. For once, she was incredibly lucky._

_“I tried to imagine you reading many of the books. With a few, I even succeeded,” she tells him. “I wonder if I could discover your favorite just by holding it.”_

_He makes a noise of contemplation, cutting into the meat on his plate. Following his lead, she takes a bite of her food, and barely manages to keep the noise of happiness in her mouth. For all that her mother had provided the freshest of vegetables, her skill for transforming them into sustenance was lacking. Persephone learned to appreciate raw food from a very young age, easier to eat the apple than stomach her mother’s bumbled cooking of it._

_“Would you like me to confirm what you saw?” He asks, words so earnest that she’s stricken. There’s a fondness in his voice that shouldn’t be possible, given how long they’ve known each other. It’s been mere weeks since she came to live with him. Was he that lonely, latching onto anyone who would stay with him, or did he truly find her that desirable?_

_“No,” she replies. “I think I’d like a more clear image before I ask.” She looks at him through her lashes, unsurprised to find him staring intently at her. “Thank you, though.”_

_There is a silence that hangs over the table, but she finds herself basking in it. There is no unnecessary conversation to fill the silence, when she is with him. The peace is calming, and she feels that’s likely its intention. She only hopes she’s not being lured into a false sense of security._

 

- 

 

As she sits alone in her dining room, the remains of her dinner cooling on her plate, beer firmly in hand, Demeter feels empty. For all that she thought she knew her daughter, or her son, as it was now, it seems she had been wrong. While she still suspects Persephone's flight to the Underworld was an act of childish petulance, she truly felt a love for Hades. He truly felt a love for Hades? Persephone had changed names and faces over the last five millennia so often that she had trouble keeping track of which one he was currently donning. 

Still, the crux of her problem is clear. The deal she had struck with Hades had been largely a farce. She had anticipated that everything would be over far more quickly, that her son’s love for Hades would dwindle just as flowers grow and die. As it did not, she sees all the holes left in the second deal, all the loopholes Hades could jump through, and her window for renegotiation is up. 

If she were certain of the goodness in her son, she wouldn’t be worried. But he has always been unstable, and so she frets. People kill for so many reasons, and all Hannibal had to do was put him in the position to kill one man in cold blood. That had been their deal. If, after five millennia, Persephone still loved Hades, she had to kill a man in cold blood. She wasn’t allowed to know about the deal, but Hades had so many other ways of convincing Will to take a life. 

It is in this moment that she curses Hannibal. _What must it be like,_ she wonders, _to always be the victor?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on tumblr at quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com, feel free to drop me a message if you have any questions! It'll get a reply much faster than a comment here, bc im pretty awful at replying to comments.  
> Also, all the chapter titles will be from songs on my playlist for this fic. Feel free to ask for the full list of songs!
> 
> I'm thinking a bi-weekly posting schedule will be best, given the speed I write at, so I'll see you all in two weeks! Unless I get a ton written before then? Who knows? I'm winging this whole thing.  
> (Edit: WOAH! This was more popular than I expected. Also, I'm writing it more easily than expected. So expect a chapter on the 15th, probably at 3 pm because I don't work then. Thank you all so much!)
> 
> Also, while alana is the antagonist of this fic, I'm gonna try not to make her too "evil" and awful, but if you really super like alana, you may find I don't do a very good job. Sorry?


	2. Interlude: I Just Wanna Take Him Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal wants his wife back, and he wants to stop dealing with awful patients. His brother is an idiot.

 

Listening to Franklyn’s bumbling, Hannibal takes a moment to curse Persephone. Had she simply consulted him first, they might have found a more elegant solution. 

It is a fact he commonly acknowledges, however, when the aching in his chest where he believes he grew a heart leaves him weary, that her independence is what drew him to her. By consulting him, she would have saved them both millennia of pain, but she would not have been herself. 

The tissue left on his table annoys him, but not enough to add Franklyn to his collection of business cards. No, that would mean that when this whole farce is over, Hannibal would still have to deal with this awkward, weepy man. The momentary satisfaction was hardly worth the long-term annoyance. No doubt the husk of his soul would be worse than the entirety of his awful personality. 

Demeter, or Alana, as she apparently is calling herself, informed him recently that the end of Persephone’s trial was near, and the beginning of his was soon to begin. In one short, mortal year, he had to turn his wife into a killer. Had to twist her mind in ways it was always meant to bend, had to unlock the dark side she tried to keep hidden from him. Why she tried to hide it, he doesn’t understand. Still, he recognizes the miracle that he has to force from the shadows, the monster he must create. 

Hannibal is looking forward to coaxing it into being. 

 

-

 

_For her first months in the Underworld, Persephone requested a separate room. It wasn’t out of some misguided modesty, and she certainly didn’t find Hades unattractive. Rather, she wished to know the man she tied herself to, before their bond was final. So long as she remained pure, he could keep her in the Underworld forever, but he would never have a claim to her beyond that. After, however, she was his to command._

_As a final safety measure, she simply sought to make sure she was chaining herself to a good man, or at least a man as good as she was. Self-awareness is the key to success, and Persephone holds very few illusions about herself.._

_For months, he did not push the issue. He seemed content to have her in whatever ways he could. Should she wish to maintain the platonic nature of their relationship, it seemed Hades could not only survive, but also thrive. So long as he had her._

_Nevertheless, after she had determined that she would be safe entrusting herself to him, she was overjoyed to share his room. That first night, she shakes with anticipation of how he will hold her, how he will make her his._

_Instead, he takes her to the bathroom, washes her gently, dresses her in the softest robe she had ever felt, and lays her under the covers, climbing in on the other side. She lies there for minutes that dragged on for hours, staring into the darkness of what was now their room, confusion set deep in her bones._

_“Do you not find me desirable?” she asks, body still, forcing herself not to look at him. Why else would he not claim her? Has she been wrong all along?_

_“I find you incredibly desirable,” he tells her, shifting so that she can feel his gaze. She is not ready to meet it, so she stays how she is. “However, it would hardly be proper for me to touch you in that way, as we know each other now.”_

_She cannot stop her head, turning almost on its own accord. Eyebrow raised, her whole body follows, until she is facing him as he faces her._

__"_ Hardly proper?” she asks. “I tricked you into marrying me so that I could escape the control of my mother. You’ve had naught but the company of the dead for centuries. Nothing about our relationship is proper, Hades, surely you must realize this.”_

_He tsks her, reaching across the gap between their bodies to run a gentle hand through her hair._

_“This is precisely why, for now, our relationship should progress as is proper, or at least slowly.” Cupping her cheek, he runs a gentle finger over her lips and leans in closer. “I couldn’t bear it if, two millennia from now, you resented me. No, let this progress slowly, organically. When the flower of our love blooms, it will be all the more beautiful for our patience.”_

_As he wraps an arm around her to pull her against him, head tucked under his chin, she considers his words. While no doubt he is correct, she has, as the weeks progressed, begun to ache for his touch._

_A deep breath draws her attention from her thoughts._

_“Did you just smell me?” she asks._

_“I could hardly help it,” is his vague reply._

 

-

 

Jack Crawford is, by and large, an incredibly boring and predictable man. With dreams of heroism and an over-inflated ego, despite his best posturing at humility, their conversation is almost deathly boring. Zeus could have at least found a more interesting way to spend his time on Earth, if he was going to deny Hades the right to roam it. 

“Will Graham has an exception mind, Dr. Lector,” Jack tells him, and though he despises the man, family is family. They are both aware of their relation, and have, for the time that he’s been on Earth, chosen to ignore this, as his brother finds him equally unpleasant to be around. “He can look at anyone and know what they’re thinking, what their motivations are, and how they tick. This makes him incredibly…” He searches for a word. “Unstable, when compared to normal people.” Neither of them acknowledge that they are also far from normal. 

“Unstable?” Hannibal asks, not feigning interest. While soon Persephone will be returning to him, who knows how long his brother will allow their truce to stand. Always temperamental, it could be any day now that he is forced to return to the Underworld. Enjoying the time he’s granted up here is the only logical conclusion. He’ll return eventually, and he won’t return alone, but the surface has always held such interest. 

“The FBI does a standard mental screening on everyone looking to enter the academy. Will Graham failed spectacularly. He reflects the emotions of others, because of the way he sees the world. By the end of a conversation with him, Will Graham has already picked up half of your oddities and idiosyncrasies.” Jack gives him a wry smile. “I think you’ll quite like him. Alana is bringing him in now.”  
Hannibal just hums. 

Down the hall, Hannibal can hear the strains of Alana’s voice, along with someone else, a voice that is familiar as it is unfamiliar. He has heard it before, he knows, but higher, much higher, and so long ago…

As the voices become clearer, he hears Alana’s last words to Will Graham before opening the door. 

“It’s time, Will.”

As he comes face to face with the love of his immortal life, five millennia of separation weighing heavy on his soul, Hannibal feels at peace for the first time since she- he left his side. In truth, it is a wonder he recognizes his wife at all, in this form. 

“Persephone-“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied about the two weeks. Does that make me an evil genius???  
> The title for this chapter comes from the song that inspired this whole thing, hence the title being from the song. The Devil's Backbone will probably title a couple more chapters, tbh.
> 
> I COULDN'T WAIT TO POST IT SO I JUST POSTED IT OKAY IM IMPATIENT. chapter three will still be up on friday. I'm thinking friday for real chapters, and after every chapter there'll be an interlude, posted on wednesday, which is generally shorter.
> 
> As always, I'm over on tumblr at quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com. thanks again to aglassroseneverfades to looking over this!


	3. No Amount of Pain would Ever Stop Me from Coming Back (To You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hades and Persephone are reunited, new names are exchanged, and Hannibal is, as always, excessively practical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the posting schedule repeats! Or really, is set in stone. On Friday, we'll have the real chapter, length no less than 3k but they're getting longer the more I write. On Wednesday, we'll have an interlude, from the perspective on any character that's not Will.  
> Many manny MANY thanks again to [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades) for reading over this. He's literally the coolest, and if you haven't read any of his fic, you need to hop right on that because HOLY COW SO GOOD.  
> The title of this chapter comes from [Hatchet by Archive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnwABVxcl3s), which is one of the most hannigram songs I've ever heard.

Will had always pictured this moment like something out of an awful romance movie. His heart would skip a beat, his breath would stop, and time would seem to slow. Hades would rush toward him, embracing him closely, holding him steady against the world, and together, they would burn the world to the ground, hand in hand. 

Instead, they stand in silence, staring at each other in awe. Hades has hardly aged, the lines around his eyes still give him a mature appearance that Will could never have pulled off in his other body, let alone this one. His clothes don’t suit his old aesthetic, and Will hopes desperately that it’s all part of the role he’s playing, and not because he’s actually come to like the idea of an entirely neutral color scheme. His hair is short, much shorter than Will has ever seen it, and he’s struck by the urge to run his hands through it, to feel how the ends with run through his fingers. 

When he’s finished examining Hades, he looks into his lover’s eyes, and the adoration there is so strong he almost has to look away, to step back and run from the room. Instead he steps forward, holding out a hand. 

“Hades,” he says, the name slipping from his lips just as the rest of the sentence slips from his mind. As if all that was required of him was to break the silence, though, Hades rushes toward him, wrapping strong arms around him and burying his nose in the crook of Will’s neck. Briefly, he remembers the presence of his mother and Jack, the latter of whom must, if he hadn’t been before, now be aware of who Will really is. He dismisses them easily as he returns Hades’ embrace. 

“You smell the same as you always did,” Hades tells him, his voice quiet, almost disbelieving. Gentle hands are running slowly up and down his back, as if Hades is trying to assure himself that Will is real, and in that moment, he has a revelation. 

He had always assumed that Hades would be, for the most part, fine, during their separation. Not for lack of caring, but simply because five thousands years was hardly a blip of his life. But now, Will knows that wasn’t the case. That when they fought, during his last Winter, it wasn’t because he’d gone over Hades’ head, it wasn’t because Hades thought Will might not love him by the end of their time apart, but instead because _Hades would miss him._ For all that Will now understands people intimately with little effort, he fundamentally misunderstood his own husband. 

The realization buckles his knees, and he clings even more tightly to Hades. 

“I’m so sorry,” he manages to say, tears in his eyes, and Hades’ own tears are wetting the skin of his neck and the collar of his shirt. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much, Hades, I’m so sorry.” 

His husband pulls away then, wiping the tears from both their faces. 

“I forgive you, Persephone. I will always forgive you.” His face changes, hardens slightly, as Hades turns to Jack. 

“I assume you will forgive us, if we choose to take our leave of both of you now?”

“Now, Hades, there are still-“ Demeter starts, but Zeus merely holds up a hand. 

“We can discuss all the particulars in a few days, Alana. Of course, brother.” 

Hades nods, looking back to him, and their eyes don’t leave each other as they walk past Alana, into the hallway, and out into the world. 

 

-

 

_It’s two Winters before Hades sees fit to kiss her. Two long winters of gentle touches, walking hand in hand and sleeping in the same bed, wrapped up in each other. She knows so much about him: how the wrinkles around his eyes become more pronounced when he smiles, how his laugh warms her like the strongest of wines, which books he reads when he feels unsettled, even what he looks like when he wakes up from one of his rare nightmares. He learned to cook on his own, he told her once, but she need not, so he has been teaching her as her mother never would, too scared of the independence that would grant her._

_She knows that for all he has down here, all his books and his food, even having her, he yearns to see the surface again. To have friends who are more than just the shadows of the dead._

_So during the summer, she collects stories. Writes down everything she sees, everything she learns, and brings them back to him._

_“I discovered the strangest thing,” she tells him one night over dinner. “I believe that in my dreams, I’m reliving all that I’ve seen through your eyes. At least, I believe it’s your eyes.” She pauses, leaving him to jump in. Hades stays silent. “It’s terrifying, but I have to wonder. How linked our we, Hades?”_

_“I had hoped you would not notice,” he tells her, honest as always, but refusing to meet her eyes. “If I am awake while you sleep, I can close my eyes and see your dreams. It was a condition I gave your mother. I don’t imagine she anticipated that I might learn to manipulate your dreams. I’m sorry I caused you distress.”_

_She smiles, small and brutal._

_“No you aren’t.”_

_He looks up at her, shock just barely showing in the seconds it takes him to form a response._

_“No,” he says. “No, I’m not.”_

_“Good,” she replies._

_“Good?”_

_“I’ll train you not to lie to me, one day, my dear,” she says with a small laugh. “I would rather an unpleasant truth than a lie. Still, my night terrors are awful enough, when you aren’t there to comfort me. I’d much rather you manipulated my dreams to be…” Persephone pauses, choosing her words carefully. “an image of where you see us, of our imagined future.” Hades always has a plan, and there is hardly any need for him to hide it from her. “Perhaps one might call it your fantasy, but I’m sure you see it as reality.” She looks down at her plate, almost empty, delicious as always. “I miss you terribly when I’m away, after all.”_

_It’s these words that have him standing, moving to her side of the table. Hades takes her hand gently, pulling her to stand against him._

_“If that is what you wish, my dear,” he whispers against her lips, “that is how it shall be.”_

_The press of there lips together is achingly gentle, his hand moving to cup the back of her head as she finds purchase in the folds of his robe._

_While the wait was agonizing, to have this moment of honesty precede their first kiss is, without a doubt, worth it._

 

-

 

It’s hardly practical for them to take one car, but Hades seems incapable of letting go of his hand, so they climb into his Bentley and begin the drive to Wolf Trap.

“I’d like for you to be as far from Demeter as I can drag you, in this moment,” Hades tells him truthfully, and Will accepts this as a reason that Hades would consider logical. He sees the world differently than others, though, Will knows. His husband has a limited range of emotions, but he feels much more intensely than others. Guilt and remorse, he quickly learned, were rare and particularly strong. There were only a few fleeting moments that he ever saw the emotion flit across Hannibal’s face. 

To say they spend most of the drive to Wolf Trap in silence would not be wholly accurate. It isn’t so much that they have some long conversation; very few words are spoken between them, in fact. The air between them, however, is incredibly full of noise. Hades’ deeps breaths as he memorizes Will’s scent, the slide of Will’s coat against the leather of the car’s seats as he fidgets. Will can’t stop looking over at his husband, as if at any moment, he might disappear, as if Will is about to wake up in his bed, drenched in sweat, only to find out this had all been a dream. His grip on Hades’ hand is likely painful, whenever the other isn’t shifting gears, but Will can’t find the energy to care. 

During the whole forty-five minute drive, Will doesn’t think he manages to string two coherent sentences together. Just like their first weeks together in the Underworld, the lack of conversation is not uncomfortable. There are so many things he wants to say, really, that Will just wants to be sure he says them all in the right order. 

He can hear the dogs barking from inside as the unfamiliar car pulls up, and he lets go of Hades’ hand so he can climb out of the car. They meet again in front of it, hands clasping together like magnets. Hades smiles softly, perhaps at the noise of his pack, or perhaps just at his presence. Will doesn’t care, really. The smile warms him inside, no matter what the reason for it. 

Unlocking his front door one-handedly proves to be more of a challenge than Will thought it would be, but despite the practicality of the idea, he finds himself physically unable to let go of Hannibal’s hand. His palm is sweating, from nerves and body heat, but Hades doesn’t seem to mind. Once the door is finally opened, the dogs rush towards them, and though it only takes a few commands for Will to settle them, Hades still seems amused by their rowdy nature. 

“I see you missed Cerberus,” Hades mutters, closing the door behind them and grabbing Will’s other hand. 

“Among other things,” he replies, trying to keep his voice coy and failing miserably. Instead of speaking, he lets go of Hades’ hand so that he can take his coat off, before popping the buttons of Hades’ sport coat and sliding it off his shoulders. While it was likely that the sweater he was wearing underneath was more expensive than Will could imagine, it was also easier to wash. 

Outer layers shed, he leads Hades to the edge of his bed, glad for once that it’s unusual placement could come in handy, before pushing him onto it, climbing to Hades’ arms, and settling his head under his husband’s chin, not unlike their first night together. 

“I would imagine that you aren’t called Persephone anymore,” Hades begins, running a hand up and down his back. 

“Jack didn’t mention my name during your whole conversation?” He asks, shifting slightly under the touch. Hades takes a second, and Will just assumes he’s thinking back. He can’t remember much of his conversation with Alana; it isn’t hard to imagine Hades is having a similarly difficult time remembering. 

“Is Will short for William?” Hades asks after a moment. Will laughs, nodding. 

“Of course your first concern is what my full name is. Are you already constructing how this name fits with your last name?” 

“William Lector simply sounds better than Will Lector, darling. It’s a simple matter.” 

“Be grateful I don’t go by Billy,” he says in reply, chuckling at the way Hades shudders. “And what name have you taken for yourself?”

“Hannibal,” Hades tells him, and Will rolls the name around in his head. It suits his husband, but there’s something intensely familiar about the name. If he can just remember where he’d heard it, he-

“The father of strategy? Truly? You named yourself after a general?”

“I was more interested in the name’s meaning,” Hades, or rather, Hannibal, says. “But I can’t deny that the name’s history influenced my decision.” Of course it didn’t, Will thinks to himself. Hades turns haughtiness into an art form. 

And it’s in this manner that they pass the next several hours, eventually tumbling into sleep. 

 

-

 

_It’s her fifth Summer home when Persephone realizes that flowers no longer respond to her the way they used to. Their colors don’t sing to her, they don’t turn to watch her as she passes by. She’d been so busy acclimatizing to her new ability that she’d completely failed to notice the change. After all, one of the terms on the contract Hades made with her mother had been that she be allowed to roam freely, during her time on the surface. So long as she returned home to sleep with some frequency, the world was hers to explore. She’d met a great many people, and while they weren’t all interesting, she learned something from all of them._

_“Mother,” she begins as they sit across the table form each other. So much of her life seems to become clear while sitting down for dinner, she thinks, that perhaps she might as well never stand up from the table. “What have you told the plants?”_

_“I told them of your choice,” her mother tells her simply. And to her mother, it likely was that simple. She’d discovered at a young age that her mother had a habit of spilling her secrets to plants. “Any decisions that they’ve made based off that are solely their own, Persephone. I can do many things, but I can’t control the whims of flowers.”_

_They both know that’s not entirely true. Just as any queen does, her mother has significant pull with plants. If she had urged them to accept her choice, they would have, regardless of their own person stances. Which means that her mother hadn’t even tried. Betrayal stings her heart, but she keeps her face still._

_“Very well,” she says softly, her voice carefully composed. “If they have made their choice, I won’t try to persuade them otherwise.”_

_Neither of them acknowledge the subtle jab in her words, but the tightening of her mother’s lips and the clenching of her own fists say enough._

_There will be no peace, this summer._

 

-

 

When Will wakes, Hannibal is staring at him, one hand on his hip and the other running through his hair. It’s a perfect moment, so of course Hannibal has to ruin it by getting straight down to business.

“We will have to consider how to best mesh our public lives soon, William.” With a groan, Will moves to rest his head on Hannibal’s chest. 

“Always business with you, isn’t it?” He asks, and the laugh he gets is a worthy reply. 

A moment passes.

“Would you rather be a new romance, William, or a newly known one? I would hate for anyone to believe I was ashamed of you. You are worthy of all my pride.” In the early days of their love, Will would have blushed. Now, he just rolls his eyes, sitting up and making his way into the kitchen, certain that Hannibal will follow. If they’re going to have any sort of serious conversation, he’ll need to be caffeinated. 

“Will Graham as the rest of the world knows him is largely unsocial. It isn’t hard to imagine that he might want to stay hidden from the rest of the world. What sort of skin have you created for yourself, Hades? You’re standing in mine, it’s only fair I get to know yours as well.”

As he grabs a filter from the cupboard and his coffee grinds from the fridge, Hannibal leans against his counter, pants wrinkled from sleep and smile easy. 

“I imagine you’ll find my wardrobe deplorable, but at this point I find it quite pleasing. But I believe I’ve made myself quite the socialite. I may have been excited to have company that was still breathing, though I admit none are as enjoyable or as interesting as you.” Again, Will rolls his eyes. The flattery is hardly empty, he knows, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is flattery. “I have been told I host dinner parties that are to die for.” Will’s laugh shakes him, has him spilling grounds on the counter as he measures them into the basket. As he flips the switch, a gurgling noise fills the room. 

“I certainly hope the irony of their words isn’t lost on you,” he replies, “or I might have to retrain your sense of humor.” Running a hand over his beard, Will considers their situation. "Still, this fact could be incredibly helpful. I can't imagine Will Graham would greatly enjoy dinner parties, or really even half of your acquaintances, so the reluctance to meet them could be put entirely upon him."

"You speak of Will Graham as if that is not who you are," Hannibal says, and Will wondered when he would make that observation. 

"Will Graham is just a persona. Like an actor putting on a character, except there are pieces of me in him. I know who I am, Hades. But you gave me the gift to be other people, when I choose to. I'm just taking full advantage of it. When we're alone, it might be best if you called me Persephone, still. It would certainly save us confusing, during conversations like this." 

Hannibal nods.

"Of course, dear. It is thrilling as always to see your brand of clarity at work." There's a smile in his words, and Will basks in it as he watches the coffee drip into the carafe. 

"And what is my brand of clarity?" 

"More emotional than my own, certainly, but no less logical. In fact, one might argue that because of your understanding of human emotions, you see more clearly than even myself."

"One might, but not you?"

"Emotions are predictable, in most cases, Persephone. I don't need to understand them to see their outcomes." 

When there's enough coffee for a single cup, he pours himself one, grabbing milk from the fridge and adding two spoons of sugar. 

"Just for that, you have to wait for the second cup of coffee," Will tells him. Perhaps he should start thinking of himself as Persephone around Hades, he considers. He has little reason to wear an suit around his husband, after all.

“Tell me about this killer of yours in Minnesota,” Hades says, his attempt at avoiding an argument so clear Will could argue it borders on lazy. 

“Well, I can only know so much, just from a murder scene. Or rather, an un-murder scene. He loves these girls, risked his freedom to put Elise Nichols back, to try to undo what he did to her. He doesn’t want them to leave him, Hades, and by eating them, he feels he can make them a part of himself. They can never leave him after he’s honored him. That’s all I can see, though.” Will groans, running his hands over his face and taking a hurried sip of his coffee. “It’s like he’s right there, right in front of me, I know him, but I can’t _see_ all of him.”

“I am certain,” Hades replies, voice even, “that given time and future developments, you will find him.”

Will laughs, dark and bitter.

“I don’t think the girls of Minnesota have a lot of time left, Hades. I’ve gotta catch him. It’s like every time he takes a girl-”

“Are you reminded of yourself?” And of course, Hades would figure out why this case was uncomfortable for him before he did. “You used to look a great deal like many of these girls. It’s natural for you to then to find it easier to put yourself in their shoes, when this killer’s shoes already fits on a part of you, Persephone.”

Will just drinks his coffee, listening to the sound of the dogs in the other room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture persephone!will looking like Jennifer connelly, at their first meeting, maybe four or five years older than her when she played sarah in the Labyrinth?  
> I'll see you all on Wednesday!  
> as always, you can also reach me on tumblr! my URL is [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com)


	4. Interlude: You are not a Human Being

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal takes a trip to Minnesota.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.  
> also, this story is not literally plotted for ~20 chapters. We're in it for the long haul, because that only goes up to about episode 3 or 4, and the way this is looking, it'll be a trilogy with one long ass fic per season.  
> basically, i'm here forever.  
> Thank as always so so SO FUCKING MUCH to todd, aka [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades), for being the best beta ever.  
> the song for this chapter is [ Gasoline by Halsey ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRHNi3QfFlE).  
> fun fact: I was so busy reading The Red Dragon for quotes and inspiration that I almost forgot that it was wednesday, and I almost forgot to post this. (The latest issue of the new avengers certainly didn't help, OH MY GOD.)

_From where he stands on the other side of the room, Hades’ jaw is slack. Persephone might share his shock, if she was unused to this behavior. In the Overworld, as they had begun calling it, men were often less careful with their tongues, unaware of with whom they were speaking. The dead were usually more careful, but she had strayed to a rather unsavory area, while she was exploring, closer to the Pit than she had noticed. Cerberus had been due for a walk, and she had been restless while Hades was busy doing inventory on the new souls. Apparently, it wouldn’t do to have a soul escape. Far be it from her to tell her husband how to do his job._

_Still, being told by the husk of a human that it would have been their pleasure to tear the flesh from her face as she screamed was not something she generally heard. Interesting, certainly, but not desired._

_Cerberus growls at her side, taking small, heavy footsteps toward the soul. With a mask of impassivity, she watches as Hades moves across the room to them both._

_“Persephone,” he bites out, not even looking at her. “I fear it might be best if you continued on your walk.”_

_It has been eight years since she took Hades as her husband, and never has she witnessed his hands clenched in this fashion, seen his teeth grinding and his eyes wild. This is a rage that burns brighter than the sun, and she would be frightened, were that rage directed at her._

_She gives a small nod, motioning for Cerberus to follow her as she heads for the door._

_“Just remember that you can’t kill someone again,” she says, attempting humor, but the joke falls flat, and Hades doesn’t even acknowledge it._

_Dinner that night is a tense affair. Persephone doesn’t ask what Hades did to the poor soul that spoke to her, and Hades doesn’t volunteer any information._

 

-

 

He’s only just left Persephone’s house, as he does actually have a practice to attend to, and Will can’t just stop teaching classes and become a kept man, when Hannibal starts planning, one hand still on the steering wheel and the other tapping the gearstick. Obviously, his husband requires some assistance in understanding the nature of the killer that Tattle Crime has begun calling the Minnesota Shrike. This means, however, that he needs a reason to travel to Minnesota. If Hannibal were desperate, he would simply travel there himself. But it’s possible that simply leaving could be traced back to him later, and with no personal need to visit the state, he imagines it would be suspicious.

Creating a business reason to travel there, however, will likely be difficult. Not that he’s averse to the challenge, but a statement of fact. No conferences of note are being held in the timeframe he has to work with, he has no colleagues in the state who might require assistance. Hannibal Lector simply has no reason to go to Minnesota. 

Hades has plenty of reason, though, he considers, shocked he didn’t think of it before. People die all the time, and he’s certainly made house calls before. Perhaps he’ll visit a hospital, and make an event out of what would have been a mere necessity. 

His rolodex doesn’t have anyone suitable for the staging, but there’s no shortage on rude mortals. 

 

-

 

_Ten years, ten summers of looking into the souls of unwitting humans and discovering the secrets they hold closest to their hearts, wrapped in lies and misdirection, and she is tired. So many mortals are mundane and good, but so many others are awful, worse than the souls that Hades keeps in the pit, cold-blooded killers who choose their victims without discretion, rapists, abusers. She tires of looking inside their minds, tires of understanding their madness. If her will be done, they would all die, but this is not her choice. Death would visit them, or it wouldn’t. She refused to play God, for all that she was one._

_Still, she writes down their names, and when they die, she will tell Hades exactly how he should treat them. Theirs will be a fate worse than the man who dared speak to her, dared to wish pain upon her, dared even, in Hades mind, to look at her with ill will. And this time, she will stay in the room, she will watch as they receive the punishment that is due. It will be justice, and it will be beautiful._

_Persephone shares none of these thoughts with her mother, instead pretending that she spends her days roaming the streets, truly enjoying every single human she meets and trying to make their lives better._

_There is a time she would have done that, after all. But she’s come to understand that not everyone deserves goodness._

 

-

 

Hannibal is leaving the hospital when he stumbles, entirely by accident, across the perfect victim. Standing right next to the door, cigarette held loosely between her fingers as smoke twists through the wind, is a brunette roughly matching the profile of the killer he intends to emulate. If Persephone saw a mockery of all that the Shrike is, Hannibal is certain he will understand the full picture. 

After making certain to look as confused as possible, Hannibal approaches her, noticing as he does that she’s standing directly in front of the no smoking sign. 

“Excuse me,” he begins, and as she looks up at him, she blows smoke in his face. He pauses for a second, waiting for an apology, and when none follows, he decides that her death should be incredibly painful. It’s fitting, given the level of rudeness she has displayed. Her behavior is hardly fitting for a human, after all, worse than the husks of the dead, and instead closer to a pig. 

It fits a little too close to his normal kills, but as far as he knows, his wife has never worked a Ripper Case, and the distance between them will be enough to stop his brother, who continues to think that the Chesapeake Ripper is a mere mortal. It would offend him more if it didn’t help him remain undetected. 

“Excuse you, indeed,” the woman says, rolling his eyes. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?” _Yes,_ he thinks. _Busy living the last painless moments of your pathetic life. Soon, all you will know is pain._

“I’m terribly sorry,” he says instead, “but I was wondering if you could give me directions to the University? My daughter is getting her appendix removed, and she wanted me to pick up a few things from her office, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to find her building.” 

The girl rolls her eyes, putting her cigarette out against the building, but not before blowing smoke in his face one more time. 

“Don’t you know how to use a GPS, old man?” She asks, turning to face the parking lot. “If you go left on the main street, and you turn onto Ninth Street, the main campus will be a few blocks down. What building does she work in?”

“Conley, she said.”

“Good for her, I guess. That’ll be right off Ninth after Marshall Avenue. There should be a parking lot on the left, though. Hope your daughter is okay, or whatever.” Now that the charade is over and she’s stopped her condescension, he requires only her name. 

“Thank you, um-“ he pauses, purely for effect. It’s best if he appears to be a bumbling, concerned parent. He’s far less remarkable then. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Cassie Boyle,” she tells him with another melodramatic roll of her eyes, “not that it matters.”

“Thank you, Cassandra, then,” he says, and with that, he walks into the parking lot, letting himself disappear between the cars. His is parked down the road, so that he can’t be tied back to the hospital, as his brother doesn’t generally approve of his habit of visiting hospitals and reaping souls in bulk. Ripping up the ticket to a football game for the local college in his pocket, Hannibal is glad he won’t have to attend. It’s amusing, sometimes, how the fates choose to do their work. 

 

-

 

_Returning for the Winter, she hands Hades her notebook the instant she is off the boat, grabbing his free hand and and standing on her toes to kiss his cheek._

_“I have names again, darling. Have any of my list returned?” She asks, eager to allow herself a period of cruelty. Pretending for so long in the Overworld grows tiring, forcing herself into the box of a daughter her mother expects, of course with no regard for her own wishes. Hades, never having asked her to be anything but her authentic self, has been enthusiastic about the taste for cruelty she has discovered, and this is not something she lets herself dwell on often. As she loves her husband, and accepts him for who he is, she is aware that he is almost another breed of monster, elevated above the ones she damns but still a monster nevertheless. He’s a monster at her beck and call, so she allows him his eccentricities._

_Torturing the dead is hardly the worst thing a person has ever done, and he’s very selective about who he punishes._

_“I believe seven are waiting for you,” he tells her as he leads her down, Cerberus following them at a lazy pace. There is no need to hurry, now that she’s returned, Persephone supposes. After all, the first week of her return is the time for rest. Even Hades must take a vacation._

_Dealing with her list is just one of their many bonding activities._

 

-

 

Cassandra Boyle is startlingly simple to hunt down, her Facebook page public, and a simple look in the white pages for the name of her father, whose Facebook is also public, reveals her address. So he waits, car idling a few houses down from the Boyle residence, bearing stolen plates and registered under an alias, for the oldest child of the Boyle family to return from the hospital. Her brother is having a procedure done apparently, a transplant of some kind. Many prayers were offered in the comment section.

They were all praying for the wrong member of the family, he laments as a car pulls into the driveway. Donning his gloves, he watches Cassandra climb out of her car, another cigarette hanging from her lips. Snuffing it out on the porch, she unlocks her front door, shutting it behind her. Only then does Hannibal turn off the car, making his way to the backdoor and opening it. He picked the lock earlier, and as he’d hoped, Cassandra hadn’t thought to check on all her locks. No fear of the Shrike in this girl, it seems. Entering the house, he takes a deep breath. While it would be impossible for him not to enjoy this kill, just as he’d enjoyed the others, tonight was about business, not pleasure. 

The kitchen is unremarkable, and he quickly finds the stairs. Up them, he can hear Cassandra moving around, mumbling words and moving her feet. She’s likely wearing headphones, he decides, and it seems this may truly be the simplest murder he’s ever committed, seemingly fated to happen. He climbs the stairs slowly, careful to keep his footsteps light, in case his assumption proves incorrect. 

Turning the corner finds him watching a dancing Cassandra Boyle, headphones in her ears and music so loud that even he can hear it. He approaches her quickly before wrapping an arm around her neck and cutting off her breathing. She struggles, so he holds down her arms with his other one, waiting until she goes slack from oxygen deprivation. Leaving the house shortly after, Hannibal binds her arms and stores her in the trunk, driving away into the night. The first act completed, he must move on to act two, eager more than ever for this all to be over and for his return home. 

After all, if he hurries, Hannibal can likely return home in time to bring Persephone breakfast.

 

-

 

_She climbs out of bed, carefully extracting herself from Hades’ arms, placing a light kiss on his forehead as an apology. It is likely he will be annoyed at waking up alone, but she has very important plans that can’t be delayed._

_Cerberus is sleeping on the kitchen floor when she enters it, searching first for wood. Hopeful that the smell won’t wake her husband, she begins making the batter for tagenites, the flour, olive oil, honey, and milk all mixing easily when she whisks it in the manner Hades taught her. A small smile grows on her lips as she remembers last night, and the reason she is up an hour earlier making breakfast, when sleep still lingers in her eyes and her limbs. The screams are still clear, even hours later._

_In handling her list, they had both decided to save the most heinous soul for last. Archilochus of Kydonia, she had discovered upon visiting his stall at the market, had two children, a daughter and a son. His own daughter had been locked away in a back room, forced by her father to perform unspeakable acts to his body, while his wife stood by in terror and silence. He deserved neither mercy nor justice, she decided. Here, in the Underworld, where she could be his judge, jury, and executioner, he deserved only pain._

_So, at her request, Hades gave it to him. He began by flaying the skin off his flaccid penis, letting it fall to the ground. Archilochus screamed, his face contorted in ways she had only seen in this room, and as the noise echoed, Persephone smiled. Long cuts were carved into his face, disfiguring him in the same way his beatings had disfigured his daughter, and his tongue was removed slowly, piece by piece, just as piece by piece he’d taken his daughter’s will to speak. Blood had filled his mouth, then, spewing from between his lips and turning his screams to humorous gurgles.Hades had of course ended with symmetry of a sort, relieving the man of his penis completely. If he was incapable of using it responsibly, he hardly deserved to continue having it._

_The batter is poured to cook into circles as she remembers the smell of the blood on the air, coppery and sweet. Tagenites were one of the first things Hades taught her to make, so she felt it a fitting thank you, for the first time Hades allowed her to join in the infliction of pain. She hadn’t done much, but as her husband was cutting off pieces of tongue, she had scored the bottoms of his feet with her knife, keeping the lines straight and overlapping like the ones on his daughter’s feet, so she could not leave him. Then, jagged lines were cut down his back. These served no symbolic purpose, unlike the rest of their actions, carefully planned beforehand. They were made so she could watch the blood flow down Archilochus’ back and listen as he continued to try and scream._

_The brutality of it had excited her, but the physicality of it had thrilled her. Once, they lit an arsonist on fire, and allowed him to burn for several minutes, but that couldn’t hold a candle to how she felt, one hand covered in blood, keeping the man steady, and the other holding a blood-slicked knife. He was already dead, so she couldn’t find the satisfaction of killing him here, but she knew she would have felt it._

_This is why she must thank her husband. He showed her how dark she can be, and now she can keep this darkness in check. Were she to reside here in the Underworld forever, she might allow it to control her. But in the Overworld, she had to be a good daughter. There was no time for thoughts of torture and murder, no space for bodies and blood in the bone arena of her skull._

_As she begins moving tagenites from the fire to a plate, arms wrap around her waist, and she jumps, dropping one into the embers._

_“Did I shock you?” Hades asks unnecessarily, a smile on his voice. Persephone doesn’t answer him._

_They stand there for a moment, him holding her while she works, before finally he breaks the silence._

_“May I ask what the occasion is?”_

_“I felt the celebration of a first was best done with a first, dear. I felt you would appreciate the symmetry.” He answers with a soft hum, placing a gentle kiss on her neck. The first time she participated in their torture of the dead, celebrated by sharing the first meal he taught her to cook. In a sense, Hades taught her how to torture, as well, but she likes to believe she was less a student and more an apprentice. The difference is subtle, perhaps even nonexistent, but it’s an illusion she’ll allow herself._

_Hades is biting at her jaw as she moves to put out the fire, but with his iron-clad grip, she can’t move enough to make much of a difference._

_“Are you capable of waiting five minutes before devouring me?” She asks, only half annoyed. This summer had felt incredibly long, and their week of freedom was almost up. Soon, they would have to return to life as normal._

_“You looked so magnificent last night that I’m not sure I can,” he tells her, running a hand over her hip as he moves to nibble at her shoulder._

_“During which part?” She chuckles. “In the pit, or in the bedroom?”_

_“And if I say both?”_

_“Then I would say I was not the only one who looked magnificent, covered in blood and holding a knife.” She can feel his growl through her back, and she turns in his arms. “I’m not certain breakfast will keep, but we can always bring it with us, if you wish to continue this somewhere more appropriate.”_

_“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Hades ask, voice wondrous, lips moving back up her neck._

_“Absolutely nothing,” she assures him. “You were nothing more than a dog following me obediently, just as you were last night.” Hands grip her more tightly, nails digging into her clothes, and she shudders. “Let us not pretend that you haven’t enjoyed being used by me,” she chastises. “I do so love this feral side of yours,” she whispers into his ear, and the growl she receives in reply warms her throughout as they leave the kitchen for the bedroom. This morning, she will be thoroughly claimed._

 

-

 

Cassandra Boyle is alive when he steals her lungs, storing them in a waiting cooler, and she is beautifully in pain, lying there dying, trying futilely to breathe, eyes wide and arms limp at her sides. There is no energy left for her to move, and no air left for her to scream. Instead he smells her fear, bitter as cocoa powder and acidic as lemon juice. 

Finally, she stills, and Hannibal moves the stag’s head he stole from a nearby house into position, the plastic of his suit rubbing together and squeaking as he bends to secure it with stakes. Carefully lifting the body, perhaps with a gentleness she doesn’t deserve, as smoke is still clinging to his favorite sweater. Pushing her into the upwards antlers, he watches the blood drip down the white bone and into the ground below. 

The light of the moon was enough for him to work with, but he wishes dearly that he could see this during the day in the flesh, as he has no doubt Persephone will show him the crime scene photos when he's called in to consult on his own kill. Will has the shrike to catch, after all, and Hannibal has always been an expert on sadism. 

Smiling to himself, he removes his plastic suit, storing it in his supply bag alongside the scalpel, grabbing it and the cooler and beginning the mile walk across the field to his car. He allows himself to wonder when the last time Will had lung was, while he decides on how to prepare it. He must speak with a few shades of the dead before he can return home, but once he has a name, his plan can continue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, you can find me at [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com). I'll see you all on friday!!
> 
> Do the white pages even have addresses? i dont know! I haven't touched a phone book in years. Let's pretend they do, though.


	5. One Way or Another (I'm Gonna Find You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will travels to Minnesota to view the body of the copy-cat killer, before deciding that Hannibal is more of an expert in sadism than he is, and has Jack send for his husband, so that he can focus on catching the Shrike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy friday!   
> (these notes were much longer but I accidently refreshed the page and lost them so orz)  
> thanks and magnificence as always to [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades) for fixing all my mistakes and just being the coolest in general!!!

       Jack calls him in the middle of talking with Hannibal, who had been absent the last two days so that he could attend to something in the Underworld, the nature of which he was unspecific about. Will imagines it had something to do with the pit. He’s been on the surface for years now, so it’s hardly surprising that he would have to return now and then, just to make sure that chaos hadn’t begun to reign, that everyone was still in their proper place. Next time, Will would insist on time off, so that he could return as well. He’d missed Cerberus, and though he’d tried to forget about it, he had dearly missed dealing with the names on his list. 

       Tucked away in a drawer, he still kept the notebook, at this point filled to the brim with names, as well as multiple sequels, books upon books of names, stored in his basement and in his attic, pattered all over his house. Five millennia of names was quite a waiting list, but he would be capable of prioritizing them, once they returned to the underworld. 

       Besides, he reminds himself. Many of them aren’t even dead.And they have an eternity, more time than even he can grasp, to work their way through his list. When they finish, they’ll find time for a vacation, and upon traveling to the surface, Will can start working on another book of names. 

       The drive to the airport is boring, and the flight even more so. Jack hadn’t been very specific over the phone, just that they’d finally found the body of a victim of the Minnesota Shrike in a field. Even from the start, Will is speculative. Leaving a body in a field is so different from tucking Elise Nichols into bed that he has a hard time believing it could be the same killer. 

       Arriving at the scene itself, he finds it hard to breath, hard to not lose himself in the macabre beauty of the sight before him. It is tragic, but it is also death elevated to the level of art. He is the Queen of the Underworld, it’s hardly surprising that her relationship with death is a little complicated. 

       Walking over the police tape in step with Jack, he watches the ravens that had been scavenging fly away. 

       “I feel like I’m dreaming,” he admits. 

       “The head was reported stolen last night about a mile from here,” Jack informs him, as if this is at all a proper reply. Hades would have an eloquent reply, but Will opts for dark humor. 

       “Just the head?”

       Beverly, Price, and Zeller are sweeping the area for evidence, but given by the infrequency of their bagging, they don’t see to be finding much. Considerate even to the dead, Beverly takes a moment to shoo away the crows brave enough to return to the body. 

       “Minneapolis homicide has already made a statement. They’re calling him the ‘Minnesota Shrike.’”

       “Like the bird?” Will asks. Price goes onto explain the nature of the bird, unaware that it’s entirely unnecessary. Beverly’s assessment is right, though; the name is rather apt. 

       “Can’t tell if it’s sloppy or shrewd.” Jack says, putting his hands in his coat pockets. He looks onto the scene with the sort of detachment only the King of the Gods could have, and Will hates his father a little for it. 

       “He wanted her to be found this way. It’s the homicidal equivalent of fecal smearing. It’s petulant. I almost feel like he’s mocking her.” Considering the circumstances, that might not be the root of this piece of art. “Or he’s mocking us.”

       “Where did all his love go?”

       Will almost scoffs, standing from where he was examining the body and turning to Jack. 

       “Whoever tucked Elise Nichols into bed didn’t paint this picture.”

       Zeller makes a startled noise from the other side of the body, and they all turn to him. 

       “He took her lungs.” There’s disgust in his voice. “I think she was still alive when he cut them out.”

       Standing back from the scene, Will closes his eyes. He’s not trying to deconstruct the scene; he doesn’t need to. This crime was spelled out for him, almost suspiciously transparent. 

       “Our cannibal loves women,” he tells Jack. “He doesn’t want to destroy them, he wants to consume them, to keep some part of them inside.” With a pause, his eyes slide over the body again. “This girl’s killer thought she was a pig.”

       “You think this is a copy cat?”

_No shit,_ he wants to say, but he can’t be certain about that. 

       “I don’t know. What I do know is that the cannibal who killed Elise Nichols had a place to do it, and no interest in field Kabuki. He has a house, or two, maybe a cabin. Something with an antler room.”

       “We’re already looking at Minnesota steamfitters and plumbers and people with hunting licenses.” 

       But that’s not enough. Something is missing, Will knows, and it’s standing right in front of him, it’s floating through the air and he can smell it, but he can’t place the smell, like trying to remember something from your childhood. Why was the distaste this killer felt for his victim so important? It was an obvious foil to the Shrike, who cared for his victims like a father, tucking them into bed and-

_Like a father._

       “He has a daughter. Same age as the other girls. Same hair color, same eye color, same height, same weight.” _Why would he need to make these girls a part of him?_ He thinks. _Why is that so important?_ “She’s leaving home. He can’t stand the thought of losing her.” Will comes as close to eye contact as his persona ever does. “She’s his golden ticket.”

       “What about the copy cat?” Jack asks, and after taking a moment to look back at the body, at the ravens and the sun in the sky, Will decided to opt for honesty, all while finding a way to mesh his life with Hades’. He’ll fill his husband in on the details when he calls tonight. If nothing else, it’s an excuse to get Hannibal up to Minnesota, so they can see each other. 

       “An intelligent psychopath, particularly a sadist, is hard to catch. There’s no traceable motive. There’ll be no patterns. He may never kill like this again.” Will looks at Beverly, Price, and Zeller, knowing Jack will catch this and interpret his next words through their points of view. “As well-voiced as I am in crazy, this is more my partner’s area of expertise. He has a psychiatric practice in Baltimore; I could ask him to draw up a profile for you, if you wanted, but he’d need to see the crime scene photos, if not the scene itself.”

       Jack motions for Will to follow him, and as he walks away, Will notices that the science trio has already moved on to more important things than his conversation with Jack. 

       “Do you actually think Hades could help us on this, Persephone, or do you just miss him, even though it’s only been a day?”

       “Three,” he corrects. “He had things to attend to in the Underworld the last two days. And while you’re not wrong, Zeus, I miss him terribly, he’s also an expert at this. He sits the souls in the Pit down for interviews, just so he can try to understand them. I admit he’s a little unhinged, but he’s a genius, and you and I both know it.”

       As his father sighs, Will knows he’s won. 

       “All right. I’ll call him, so it looks official, but I wanna go on the record with you that I think getting Hades involved with the FBI is a dangerous game.”

       “And my involvement isn’t dangerous?” He asks. 

       Zeus doesn’t have an answer for that.

 

-

 

_This is much more refined than his normal actions regarding the Pit, she observes as she runs a hand idly through Cerberus’ midnight coat. She motions for him to go back to his post, gently whispering a promise to play fetch with him later._

_Hades is sitting in a chair across from Archilochus, a table between them. Too far to hear what they’re saying, only the sound of their voices reach her, and not the words they’re saying. Given that the wounds on his idea body are still healing, his uncooperative, combative posture seems understandable._

_Moving closer, she watches for Hades to hear her approach, but if he’s aware she’s standing behind him, he gives no outward sign. Archilochus, on the other hand, looks up at her with glaring eyes. His jaw is clenched even tighter, his hands twitching. Moving quickly, he spits at her, and moving even faster, Hades stabs a knife through his hand that rests on the table. Persephone isn’t even sure where he pulled it from, and she can’t ask over Archilochus’ screams._

_“My wife is to be respected,” Hades tells Archilochus with a flat tone, his face void of all emotion. It’s not often that she seems him so blank, and it is disconcerting and endearing in equal measure. Not for the first time, she smiles at the idea that she sees it rarely because she makes her husband feel true emotion. All fantasy, but something she likes to ponder, nevertheless._

_“Your wife is the reason I can’t walk,” he bites out, and she smiles wider._

_“Yes, I am.”_

_“She’s also the reason why you were allowed to live past the moment you met her. It is her belief that while it is unbefitting of her to kill the living, torturing the dead who deserve it is her duty. You were last, the finale. Does it feel good, to know you were so evil? We planned your pain for the longest time.”_

_Archilochus snarls, struggling against his restraints to lean forward._

_“I’ll kill you one day,” he tells her, looking her dead in the eyes. She laughs at him, moving around the table to pull his head back by his hair._

_“You’ll never muster the will, if we decide it so. You only feel like yourself now because we wish it. The second you bore us, you’ll be a shade, just like the rest of the souls. Used for our amusement and then thrown away.” She pulls up on his hair, listening to the sound of hairs breaking before suddenly letting go, the sight of his head flopping more satisfying than it should be. “Fitting, given how you used and threw away your daughter.” Walking to her husband on the other side of the table, she leans down to kiss his cheek. His chest rumbles at the contact, and a hand slides into her hair, keeping her in place just long enough for their eyes to lock._

_“I should be finished here soon,” he mutters, fingertips massaging her scalp._

_“Try not to have too much fun,” she replies, voice playful._

_Turning to leave, she hears the knife’s removal from the table, and relished in the scream it pulls from the monster sitting across from her husband._

 

-

 

       Persephone isn’t expecting Hades until noon, so when a knock wakes him far earlier than he would ever willingly wake up, he’s confused. His bones groan as he climbs out of bed and moves to open the door. There stands his husband, a thermos of coffee and a hot bag of food in his hands. Smiling, Persephone kisses him chastely, leading him inside his hotel room and closing the door. 

       “You’re early,” he says, and they both know he’s requesting more information. 

       “I got into the flight before mine on stand-by. I considered simply driving the second I got my brother’s call, but it would have only gotten me here a few hours earlier, and I would have been too tired to make you anything.” Persephone doesn’t even bother to ask where he found a place to make breakfast. Hades could have done anything from blackmailing his brother into getting him to a kitchen to renting out the kitchen of some restaurant for an hour, likely for incredibly too much money. Persephone wouldn’t put either past him. 

       Instead of thinking too much on it, she sits down at the table in the room, not even realizing that she’s shifted bodies until she sees that Hades hasn’t taken a seat, and is instead staring her. She looks down, wondering if she sweat through her shirt, and instead finds that she has breasts again. 

       “Oh,” she mutters, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. It’s about the length it was the last time she wore this body, and she doesn’t have a ponytail, so this is a troublesome development. “That hasn’t happened before,” she tells him looking up to meet her husband’s gaze. 

       “So the switch is generally voluntary?” Hades asks, because of course he’s curious about the mechanics of it all. 

       “More voluntary than this, at least,” she admits, listening to the difference in her voice. “I’ve woken up in the other body a few times, but normally, if I feel like presenting as female, I take a long weekend and travel somewhere, spend the entire time in dresses and sandals, sometimes buying myself clothes I think you’d like me in.” She shrugs. “I’ll just change back later, if it doesn’t bother you.”

       Hades just huffs amusedly, removing the covered plates of food. 

       “Perhaps it’s fitting that you look as you did, when you eat this,” he says, taking the lid off the plate. She looks down at their breakfast, and instantly understands what he meant. Hades made her pancakes. 

       Her smile is a slow, lazy thing, working its way over her face just as she begins to feel a tear running down her cheek. 

       “You and your symmetry,” she tells him, intending to sound playfully scornful and ending closer to fond and reverent. Even now, all these millennia later, the memory of eating the cold tagenites, laying tangled together in bed while recounting their favorite moments of that night’s session in the pit is fresh in her mind, like she’s deconstructing the scene herself. As they didn’t torture any of the dead last night, Persephone just assumes Hades thought this was a fitting meal for their first real breakfast since their reunion, given the meaning it held for both of them. Everything has to have a deeper meaning with Hades. 

       “Was it not you who first suggested this meal could be symbolic?” He asks, and she laughs, because he’s not wrong, but he’s not right.

       “Only because I thought you would enjoy the meaning. I’d like to think you know me well enough to know that, while I appreciate the effort you put into giving all things meaning, I don’t feel the need for it. That still hasn’t changed.”

       Hades pours the coffee, then, handing her a cup and holding his up to a toast that she quickly returns. 

       “Still, to appreciating the beauty in life,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Especially when one finds themselves lucky enough to be married to it.”

       “Flatterer,” she accuses, voice playful. 

       “But of course. Jack does such an awful job of reminding you of your successes in the field, someone must pick up the slack.”

       Persephone wonders who told him that Jack pushes her hard in the field, given that she hasn’t been back out in it very long. She imagines it was her mother, but it’s not impossible for Hades to have another source. 

       “Speaking of work,” she begins, “what do you think about the body in the field?” 

       “My brother tells me you have a knack for the monsters,” Hades says, and they share a look before laughing harder than she has in ages. 

       “Zeus can think what she wants of you,” she replies, working very hard not to giggle at the end of her sentence. “He doesn’t need to know I married a monster, Hades. Some parts of our lives should remain a mystery.”

       “If you wish, my dear.”

       Still, Hades is a much better sounding board for his thoughts than the other agents at the FBI, and given that Zeus has already asked him for a profile, it wouldn’t hurt to share. 

       “I don’t think the Shrike killed that girl in the field.”

       “The devil is in the details,” Hades says, taking a sip of his coffee. “What didn’t your Copy Cat do to the girl in the field? What gave it away?”

       “Everything,” she replies, surprising herself with the immediacy of her response. “It’s like the killer had to show me a negative so that I could see the positive.” She thinks back to how she felt, standing in that field, staring at the poor girl who looked much like she used to, when she was young and naive. It felt like a piece of her had been stolen, just as Cassie Boyles' lungs were. “The crime scene was practically gift-wrapped. It felt suspicious at the time, but I think I may have just been placing myself too firmly in the victim’s shoes. Like you said, I did used to fit this profile.”

       Some emotion she can’t place flashes briefly on Hades’ face. She considers, for a moment, asking what he’s thinking, but instead he speaks. 

       “Now that you see the Shrike more clearly, what do you know about him? What sort of problems does he have?”

       She laughs, running a hand through her hair. 

       “He has a few. For one, he’s literally obsessed with his daughter. It’s not sexual, but he is so afraid of the idea of her leaving that he’s willing to kill her, to keep her with him.” She pauses, chewing slowly as she thinks. “Reminds me of someone we both know, in a way.”

       “Oh?” Hades asks, leaning forward slightly, likely unconsciously. 

       “Archilochus was, of course, worse than the Shrike. If we catch the Shrike soon, his daughter will remain unharmed, for the most part.” Persephone doesn’t allow herself to think about how she might have saved Archilochus’ daughter from more pain by killing him the moment she met him. Playing God is not in her nature, and she refuses to do it. 

       “Then let us both get to work,” Hades tells her. “Finish your breakfast, dear.”

 

-

 

_With a jolt, breath heaving and body covered in sweat, Persephone throws herself out of bed. There’s a bucket of water across the room, and as she splashes the cool liquid across her face, she listens to the racing of her heart. Standing with her hands on the rim of the basin, arms wrap around her suddenly, and she struggles. Her father can’t hurt her if she fights back, her father can’t hurt her is she kills him, her father-_

_“Persephone,” a voice says in her ear, but that is not her name, this man is not her father, where is she? “Persephone, you need to calm down. You’ve just woken up from a night terror, but you are safe now.”_

_She’s not safe, she wants to tell this man, she’ll never be safe as long as her father is alive, but the air in her throat is frozen and her mouth can’t move to form words._

_“Your name is Persephone, it is the middle of the night, and you’re in our bedroom in the Underworld. Can you repeat that for me?”_

_“My-“ she starts, moving hands to grip at the arms around her, “my name is Persephone. It’s the middle of the night. I’m in our bedroom in the Underworld.” Hades nods against her head, pressing a light kiss to her neck before leading her back to the chair beside the bed. Her side of the bed is soaked, and she sits as Hades changes the sheets. Instead of thinking about her dream, she watches him work and focuses on evening her breathing, pulling her legs to her chest and running slow hands over her shins, feeling her skin under her fingers. Her name is Persephone, it’s the middle of the night, and she’s in their bedroom in the Underworld._

_It startles her when Hades’ returns to lead her back to bed, but she follows willingly, allowing herself to be pulled into his arms._

_“Would you like to talk about your dream?” He asks, obviously trying to keep his tone neutral but coming closer to detached curiosity._

_“No,” she tells him honestly, “but I think you’re the only one who can help me.”_

_“Who were you?” he asks, understanding what she can’t say._

_“I was his daughter.” Taking a shaky breath, she continues. “I was stuck in that backroom, and I could feel the chain around my legs. Emptiness, that was my main emotion.” But this isn’t what hurts her, really. “I think a part of me knew I could have helped her, in the dream. Terrified as I was, I was also furious. I shook with both rage and fear. If I had killed him, the day I met him, how much pain would I have spared her?”_

_Hades shushes her then, running a hand through her hair._

_“You cannot judge yourself by the actions you could have taken, my darling,” he says, voice soft and soothing. “You can only use the actions you made to influence the ones you will make in the future. Perhaps one day, you will find a man so evil that killing him seems logical.” She shudders at the thought, and she’s not sure if she does so from disgust or excitement. “Until that day, and even after it, you can only continue to do as you see fit.”_

 

-

 

       Back in the body he’s presenting as to world, Will pulls up in front of the trailer for the construction site. With Jack busy in court, and Hannibal working on building his profile of their Copy Cat killer, he’s on his own to start going through the construction sites that have used the pipe they found. This is his third today, and after this one, he’ll be stopping back by the hotel, supposedly to discuss Hannibal’s profile, but really just so they can grab lunch. 

       The woman at the desk seems exceedingly nervous, and though she lets him begin looking through the files, she isn’t very subtle when she calls her boss to let him know what’s going on. It’s not that Will blames her, but her voice in the background is largely an annoyance. As he’s going through the files, pulling them out largely at random, one of the resignation letters strikes him as odd.

       “Garret Jacob Hobbs,” he says, and there was supposed to be more of a sentence there, but he can’t put the words in the right order. 

       “He’s one of our pipe threaders. Plumbers union requires them whenever members finish a job.” She ends the call with her boss, promising to touch base later. 

       “Does Mr. Hobbs have a daughter?” he asks the woman, who nows that he thinks about it, may very well have introduced herself as Dixie. He allows himself a moment to feel bad for forgetting her name already. Is she the site-leader, or the secretary of the site leader? Will probably forgot that part, too.

       “Might have.”

       “Eighteen or nineteen, wind-chaffed? Plain but pretty? She would have auburn hair, be about,” Will holds a hand at about his shoulder, “this tall?”

       “Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t keep company with these people.” 

       He no longer regrets forgetting her name, and decides that she’s probably the site leader. 

       Looking back at the letter, though, Will finally places what was so odd about it. All of the other letters had included a forwarding address. Garret Jacob Hobbs only left a phone number. It doesn’t mean he has anything to hide, but as he pulls more files and looks through more resignation letters, each one ending with both an address and a phone number, some of them even including an email, the nagging feeling grows. His hands twitch as he picks up Hobbs’ file again. 

       “Do you have an address for Mr. Hobbs?” He asks. After lunch, it might do for him to take Hannibal and pay Garret Jacob Hobbs a visit, if Jack still isn’t free. He won’t go alone, but he doesn’t want to try to explain to anyone else how he’s certain that Hobbs is the man they’re looking for. 

 

-

 

_It’s summer again, the next time she thinks of Archilochus’s daughter. She’s walking through the marketplace with her mother, pretending that she cares about whatever her mother is planning for dinner and how the flowers by the river have begun to tell her the gossip of a pair of lovers that meet on their banks, when she sees her. Long brown hair, blue eyes like ice_ _and frost, hands shaking in her lap. . Though she has never laid eyes on this woman, Persephone recognizes her. Doesn’t know her name, but knows entirely too much about her past to be a mere stranger. This is the girl she left to suffer at the hands of her father, the one she could have spared._

_The rest of the day is spent in silent contemplation. Surely the life of one man for the life of one woman was fair, she allows herself to think, before shaking her head, as if the act can push thoughts from her head. It used to be able to, in a time where she wasn’t married to the King of the Underworld, in a time where she didn’t understand people as clearly as she does now._

_Hades would know what to tell her, would know how to soothe her thoughts. As she lies in bed, she prays that he is still awake beneath her, far underground. She prays he will soothe her dreams, instead of feeding her nightmares. He is capricious, but he’s not inherently malicious._

 

-

 

       Pulling up to the Hobbs’ residence with Hades in the passenger seat, Will is struck by just how normal the scene is. There’s nothing unusual about the house, nothing that would scream a killer and cannibal lives within its walls. Then again, he supposes, there almost never is. 

       Looking over at his husband, he’s struck by the look on his face. 

       “What are you smiling about?”

       “Peeking behind the curtain. I find myself curious about how you’ve spent a majority of your time in the Overworld. To see you go about your normal life is almost thrilling.” Will snorts, putting the car into park and unbuckling his seat belt. 

       “This is hardly how I spend a majority of my time. Until _your brother_ dragged me back into the field, I was a teacher. Sure, I taught about killers, but I kicked more doors down as a cop in New Orleans than I do while working at the FBI.” 

       As they climb out the car, he resists the urge to reach for Hades’ hand. Here, they’re acting in a professional capacity. He isn’t sure it would be appropriate. 

       “He’s also your father,” Hades reminds him as the reach the front door. 

       “And by modern standards, that makes everything we do incredibly inappropriate, so it’s probably best not to mention that to anyone. Wouldn’t want them thinking you married your niece.”

       Knocking on the door, he listens for any sort of indication that there’s panic within the house, and hearing none calms his shaking hands. Resisting the urge to take an aspirin, Will adjusts his glasses instead. Anything to keep his hands busy. If he’s right about Garret Jacob Hobbs, this could all go downhill very quickly. 

       A girl with shoulder-length brown hair opens the door, and in that instant, Will knows that he is right. Hannibal tenses next to him, just enough that he can see it out of the corner of his eye. They’re both staring at Hobbs’ golden ticket. 

       “Is your father home?” Will asks, trying to keep his voice neutral. “We need to ask him a few questions.” 

       The girl raises an eyebrow before turning to face the inside of the house. 

       “Dad,” she calls, “there are two guys at the door for you!”

       “Who are they?” A voice from another room asks. She turns back to them, eyes expecting an answer. 

       “He doesn’t know us,” Will explains. “We’re from the FBI.” 

       Her face flickers in that moment, just a smidgen, just enough to tell Will that she knows why they’re here, that she knows what her father is, what her father has done. She steps closer to them, then, and Will thinks it might be an unconscious action. 

       “Abigail?” Hobbs calls from the other room, and the voice is closer than it was moments ago, as if he’s walking towards them. 

       As Hobbs rounds the corner, Will thrusts the girl, who must be Abigail, towards his husband, reaching for his gun and aiming it at the doorway. The color drains from Hobbs’ face, and he flees back the way he came. Hands shaking around his gun, Will follows, taking only a second to look back and make sure that Hannibal is staying in the doorway. 

       “Garret Jacob Hobbs!” He yells, turning the corner and entering the kitchen to find Hobbs holding his wife, a knife to her throat. Before Will can get a clean shot, he pulls the knife across her throat, the arc of blood spraying the room. It’s only as her body falls limp to the floor that he can shoot, one pull of the trigger after another, until Hobbs is just a body twitching against his kitchen cabinets. He can hear quick footsteps behind him, and as he holsters his gun and reaches for his phone, he calls back to his husband.

       “Keep Abigail out there,” he shouts, already dialing for an ERT. As soon as he confirms the address, he calls Jack. 

       “We found him,” he says, breathing more raggedly than he realized. “We found the Shrike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter abigail hobbs stage right  
> as always you can find me on tumblr at [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com)
> 
> can you guess what my favorite line for this whole fic has been so far? hint, it involves the last section and incest jokes that shouldn't be as funny as they are.


	6. Interlude: It doesn't make you strong (It doesn't make us weak)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail Hobbs is 50 shades of done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter notes are largely awful bc i was in a wreck earlier today, and my car was totaled. I'm just here to post this and leave, but I love y'all. I'll add real notes later.

_Three years earlier_

 

_Her hands are shaking as she holds her rifle, her breathing as calm as she can reasonably keep it, and her legs restless, urging her to run forward, urging her to-_

_Abigail jumps as a shot rings through the forest, and the buck she and her father had been watching falls to the ground, limbs like rubber. It’s their first kill of the season._

_“Dad,” she groans, trying to sound more upset than she really is. “I would have gotten it. I almost had the shot lined up!” Her dad just laughs at her as they start walking toward the carcass._

_“Your hands were shaking too much,_ Abs _,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes, even though she knows he’s right. She just wanted to be the one to take the shot. “This is only your third time out, pumpkin. You’ll make your first kill when you’re ready for it, and not a moment sooner.” They carry the body back to the car together, neither of them thinking even for a moment to take a photo with the body. Her dad instilled in her the idea that to flaunt your victory in such a way was tasteless._

_When they get to the cabin, he shows her again how to dress the kill. She won’t get to do it until she’s downed a deer of her own, but she’s not concerned. By the time she gets there, she’ll have seen it done enough times that it should be second nature. Abigail knows that just by being there, she makes her father happy, but she wants to do more than that. Once she does this all herself, he’ll be proud of her. Maybe even prouder than when she got the lead role in Fall Play at her school? Prouder than the first time a teacher called home to talk about her grades, and how she would be eligible for accelerated classes, maybe even a few at the high school, and more recently, at the local community college?_

_Shaking her head, she returns her attention to her father, and his explanations. It’s important to stay in the moment, after all._

 

-

 

Meeting the man who killed her dad would probably have been more awkward if, deep down, she weren’t grateful that he’d pulled the trigger. Will Graham had saved her life, and she was not unaware of this fact. They’re sitting on opposite sides of the interrogation table, taking a statement from her about her dad’s activities for the last few months. 

Had anything seemed strange? _No, it was completely normal that her dad had been forcing her to become friends with girls that looked like her for the sole purpose of learning their schedules, kidnapping them, and murdering them before feeding them to his family._ Was he a violent person? _No, he just really wanted to kill me._ Did he have anyone he hunted with? _Just me, but don’t get any ideas, because I’m telling any lie I can to make sure you don’t think I’m an accomplice, because I am, but what was I supposed to do? Let myself die?_ Where do you think he might have hidden the rest of the bodies. _Our pillows and his hand-bound notebooks with paper made out of human skin and the knife that had been a gift for my birthday, which was probably made from a human thigh bone. You can’t have it back._

Abigail thinks she’s passed all of their tests when, despite what she’s pretty sure is a massive breach of FBI protocol, she’s released into the care of Will Graham. Given that she’s nineteen, she could just go her own way, but Will has an empty guest bedroom, dogs, and doesn’t seem likely to kill her, so she already likes him more than her dad, in a few ways. 

“I think you managed to fool Jack, but if not, it’d be good to start working out a lie for when you think your dad might have had time to hunt and kill all those girls.” She stops walking, staring at him slack faced. Will just turns around and continues. “He probably doesn’t think you’re a suspect yet, and it’s better we keep him thinking that way, but my husband believes that preparation is the key to success.”

“You know?” she asks, hands shaking. What is he going to want her to do, to keep him silent? Is it too late to run?

“I knew the moment you opened the door. It’s not your fault, Abigail. You were a victim as much as any of those girls were. In some ways, it can be argued that you were even more a victim. They got to be free in death. You’ll have to live with the burden of your father the rest of your life.”

“Are you crazy?” she takes a deep breath, rubbing her thumb and index finger together and looking just below Will’s eyes. 

“Probably,” he tells her honestly. “My husband is a psychiatrist, though, so I think we’ll be fine.” 

“What’s he like?” Please, give her anything to think about besides the fact that this man seems to know her biggest secret. 

“You’ve actually already met him. He was with me when you answered the door.” 

Great. What had his name been? She thought she caught it when he was putting a shock blanket around her and stowing her in the back of a police car, but Abigail didn’t want to get it wrong. It would probably come up in conversation soon enough.

For now, she gets into the passenger seat of Will Graham’s car, driving to his husband’s house, because they don’t live together. Will says this like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and a quick glance down at his finger reveals the daintiest wedding ring she’s ever seen a man wear, a thin silver band with six small purple stones along the band. It’s like no wedding ring she’s ever seen before, and it’s in this moment, and not the one where she was revealed to be almost a co-conspirator, that Abigail truly wonders what she’s gotten herself into. 

 

-

 

_Two and a half years earlier_

 

_Sometimes, Abigail catches her mom staring at her with a sad look in her eyes. It’s never disappointed, because she knows her mother is so proud of her, already taking some of the more advanced science classes her school had to offer and planning for the day when she will have exhausted these and begin taking classes at the local community college for half the day. She doesn’t know what she wants to do yet, but her mother hasn’t ever said anything to make her feel ashamed of that._

_No, the sad looks always come when her father is away on hunting trips without her. Sometimes, they’re standing in the kitchen, her mother working on making her protein bars while she does her homework or reads at the table. Other times, she’s practicing viola in her room when she looks up from the sheet music to find her mother standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip and a sad attempt at a smile on her lips._

_She used to think that in those moments, her mom regretting not going to school, or regretted not pursuing more of the things she enjoyed._

_Abigail won’t think that for much longer._

 

-

 

When Will pulls into the driveway of an expensive looking house, she takes one look at him, with his loose-fitting shirt and his faded jeans, and starts to ask if he got the address right. 

But sure enough, the man who she was shoved into so that her dad couldn’t kill her opens the front door as Will climbs out of the car. Abigail follows after him with hesitation, and as they enter the house, it’s everything she can do not to stare. 

It’s no house she’d ever want for herself, the decorations too intricate and the theme of the house too dark, but Abigail can’t deny that it’s the most beautiful, well put together house she’s ever seen in real life.

“Thank you,” Hannibal tells her, and she doesn’t remember saying anything, but perhaps he can read the expression on her face well enough to understand the sentiment behind her thoughts. “It’s not often I entertain anyone even close to you age, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit out of touch.” Will laughs, the warmest sound she’s heard out of him all day. 

“Don’t listen to him for an instant. He plays the harpsichord and makes his own peanut butter. He’s not overly concerned with his cultural relevancy.” 

“My mom used to make her own peanut butter,” she mutters, mostly to herself. Her mom made a ton of things, really. Scarves, peanut butter, ice cream, bread. Her mom wouldn’t eat High Fructose Corn Syrup, let alone eat something that she could make herself for less money.

“All the smartest people do,” Hannibal says, and she’s grateful, in that moment. It’s the most subtle and least painful remark anyone has made about her mother so far. Will had avoided the topic all together, and she’s grateful for that, too. “Come, let me show you the room you’ll be staying in while you’re here. We tend to switch between houses, depending on the day, so it would be best for you to feel comfortable at both.” Will has left them to venture into an unknown part of the house, seemingly lost in thought, but Hannibal doesn’t seem concerned by this, so she lets it go. 

“Why don’t you two live together?” she asks, feeling bold. It’s easier to talk with Hannibal, she thinks, and not just because he hasn’t yet admitted to being aware of what she’s done. No, he just has an ease and confidence to the way he carries himself that Will doesn’t. Abigail finds it soothing. 

“Will has a very large number of dogs, and it wouldn’t do to have them all here, given the cramped size of my backyard.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “If you can keep a secret, I’m currently looking for a house equidistant from both our jobs with a kitchen up to my standards and room enough for all his dogs. If you’d like, you can come with me to look at some of them?” 

Abigail nods, both because she wants to and because she isn’t sure how to say no to Hannibal. It’s a familiar feeling, she thinks. Her mother could be the same way. Besides, if the wrongful death suit against her father is successful at all, however that works, she’s been told she’ll be left with almost nothing. Will and Hannibal are obviously not hurting for money, and they don’t seem to have kids of their own. If she insinuates herself into their lives enough, it’s not impossible for her to imagine that they might adopt her, even if it’s due to a sense of morbid obligation. And if that happens, she’s gonna want to like the house. 

She could survive her father killing people; she can survive a little emotional manipulation.

 

-

 

_One and a Half Year Earlier_

 

_Dad flipped when she started looking at colleges for real. It was the first fight Abigail can remember having with her dad that lasted longer than a day. And all because she was considering going to a few schools that were out of state?_

_Half of the universities around the country were putting together scholarship packets for her, and she hadn’t even gotten her most recent ACT score back. Her first one had been a 34, but since she was so close, she decided to take it again, on the off chance that a little more studying could get her a perfect score._

_Abigail knew that she could go to just about any school she wanted. This had never been a serious concern of hers. Early on, she acknowledged it was going to be hard for her parents to afford sending her to college, and that she was likely going to have to take out loans of her own or find scholarships to cover the difference. Her family wasn’t poor, but they weren’t made of money. She wasn’t athletically gifted, so instead, she’d spent all her time on her academics. Marissa was basically her only friend, so that wasn’t a hardship._

_Now, her dad is trying to ruin all her hard work. What was the point of her working to be the best, of her scrambling to be in the top five percent of her class, if she was just stuck to going to some state school in Minnesota? How was that going to challenge her?_

_She’s still fuming as her dad stands in the doorway, trying to look apologetic and failing._

_“I just don’t want you to be too far from home, if something goes wrong.”_

_“And when I’m thirty, dad?” She asks, voice more bitter than she really intended. “When I’m forty, and I’ve never been more than five hours away from home? I can’t stay in the nest forever. At some point you’ve got to let me fly and hope I don’t get killed, dad. Survival of the fittest is a perfectly functional way to raise a child.”_

_Her dad just glares at her, turning to leave the room, but something makes him pause._

_“This isn’t the wild, Abs. You don’t have to be the strongest.”_

_But she does, Abigail wants to say._

_“Whatever, dad,” she says instead._

 

_-_

 

There’s a clamor from downstairs, and for all that she was going to hide in her room and avoid the only person alive who knows that she helped her father kill people, she can’t resist opening the door to her room and climbing slowly down the stairs. 

Abigail follows voices into the kitchen, and the closer she gets, the clearer they become. 

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea, Will,” a woman says as she moves to stand in the doorway. She watches as Hannibal’s eyes catch hers for only a moment. The woman, turned away to look at Will, doesn’t notice his wink. 

“Alana, it’s hardly the worst idea I’ve ever had,” Will tells her, and the woman, Alana, Abigail supposes, puts a hand on her hip. 

“You killed her father, Will, and now she’s stuck living with you. Has she even been downstairs since she came home?” _No,_ Abigail thinks, _but not for the reason you think._ “She’s probably scared to death.”

“Perhaps,” Hannibal begins, “she is just taking a moment to decompress from the whole situation. Abigail will come to us when she’s ready.”

Will sees her next, and he is equally subtle about acknowledging her presence. They’re giving her the option to reveal herself, she realizes. To leave it up to her is to give her power to choose the right moment and to say as little or as much as she wants. 

_What’s giving them all this faith in me?_ she wonders. 

“Or, she could think that the entire federal government just abandoned her with her father’s killer. She’s probably worried you’re going to try to adopt her next!”

“Sounds like the tagline to a pretty great sitcom, if you ask me,” Abigail says, taking a strange delight in the way Alana jumps. “Not that it seems like you were going to.”

“Abigail!” Alana says, voice higher than it was just moments ago. She doesn’t seem as embarrassed as she should be, and Abigail can’t place why that’s odd, but it is. 

“Hello, stranger,” she replies. By pretending not to know this woman’s name, she can pretend she came in on the conversation just at that moment. It’s best for everyone that way, she thinks. 

“My name is Alana Bloom. Jack Crawford asked me to stop in and see how you’re doing. Would you like to take a walk?” Abigail shakes her head no. 

“If you can talk about me to them, surely we can talk about myself with them in the room.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Will smile, and it’s slightly feral. 

_That should really be more frightening than it is, I think._ Maybe if she came from a normal family, it would have been. 

 

-

 

_Eight months earlier_

 

_When her mom doesn’t come on the first college visit, Abigail is worried. Where had she disappointed her mother? Are they poorer than she thought they were? Can they even afford these visits?_

_Then it happens, and she understands why her mother stayed home. The silence after her father gives her the order speaks to her with noise and clarity._

_“I want you to find out where she lives,” he says, voice so firm and so harsh that she almost jumps. His grip on her arm is painful, and all she can do is nod mutely._

_Her name is Regina Michaels, and she goes missing the weekend after they return from her college visit while her dad is on a hunting trip. It happens again, and her name is Trisha George. At some point, Abigail forces herself to stop remembering their names. It’s all less painful that way._

 

_-_

 

After Alana leaves, Will goes upstairs, damp wash cloth in hand and complaining about an oncoming migraine. Hannibal smiles fondly at this, as if it is a regular household occurrence. 

They sit in silence for a minute, and then she pulls out her phone, opening Facebook and doing the one thing she’d avoided doing since arriving in Baltimore. 

Her wall is full of posts of people either giving her their support or accusing her of stabbing and gutting the girls herself. That’s normal. That, she expected. Scrolling through her feed, though, she comes across something she doesn’t expect. Marissa shared a video of herself talking to the news. 

“Do you have any headphones?” She asks Hannibal, looking up to find him cooking something. He shakes his head no. “Do you mind if I play a video out loud, then? I’m finally checking Facebook after all of…” There is no good word for what she’s been through. “This, I guess, and my best friend Marissa shared a video of herself on the news.”

“It would be prudent for you to remain informed about the public opinion surrounding all of this, Abigail. Will tells me he has revealed his knowledge to you, but I think it’s time for me to do so as well.” Her breath sticks in her throat. “Abigail, I know.” _Why are you helping me?_ she wants to ask. She wants to scream, she wants to steal the keys to Will’s car and drive so far away that none of this can ever touch her. 

She hits play instead. 

_“She would hunt all the time with her father,”_ the Marissa on her phone screen says into the microphone. _“I thought we were best friends. I thought I knew her, you know? I don’t want to believe she would do anything like help her father, but what else is there to think? How else could he get those girls to talk?”_

Hannibal takes the phone out of her hand and locks it, setting it on the table. 

“Would you like to help me make dinner?” he asks her, and Abigail nods slowly. 

A distraction sounds perfect right now.


	7. All the King's Horses (And All the King's Men)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The psych eval isn't a formality, but that's okay, because the psychiatrist administering it is formal enough for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy friday! I hope you all had a good week!  
> As always, Todd is the best and should be given praise, kudos, and cupcakes. you can find his writing at [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades).  
> The title for this chapter came from [All the King's Horses by Karmina](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJoggpk9kqQ), which I only recently discovered thanks to a 100 fanvid.  
> (I have the beginnings of a 100 Hannibal AU rolling around in my head, but I'm not sure there are enough characters in Hannibal to pull it off, tbh.)

       His hand tenses as he pulls the trigger once, twice, thrice. Each of the shots is too far from the center for his liking, so he tries again once, twice, thrice. Still no bullseye. 

       Frustrated, Will starts to bring the paper target toward him. If an hour of shooting practice hasn’t gotten him anywhere, it must be time to try a different approach. Maybe he could ask Beverly for help? 

       Looking back at the target, he watches as the paper morphs into a man. Garret Jacob Hobbs stares back at him. 

       Will knows that it’s a hallucination. He knows that Garrett Jacob Hobbs is down in autopsy right now, that his body has been cut open and sewn back together in a way that left no chance for him to be alive. He’d even attended the autopsy, against Alana’s suggestion and at Hannibal’s urging. 

       None of this knowledge stops him from pulling the trigger, as if he’s standing in that kitchen again, a woman bleeding out on the floor. Once, twice, thr-

       Click.

       He only looks down for a second, just long enough to get his fingers around his other clip, but in that time, the target has become someone else. Archilochus stares back at him, and Persephone empties her clip into his body until the final click tells her she can’t shoot anymore. She pulls the trigger three more times, listening to the clicks as if she’s expecting to hear a muffled bang through her ear muffs. 

       She’s able to regain enough control to shift back, grateful for the empty range, but Will knows that whatever happened with Garret Jacob Hobbs changed him, and he isn’t sure he’s ready to deal with the consequences of his actions. 

       Days later, as Will steps out of the SUV with Jack, staring up at the Hobbs cabin, he can still hear the clang of shells hitting the floor. 

       Entering the cabin, it all seems like a fairly standard affair. There’s a dear dead on the table, multiple hunting trophies scattered around the room, and a bow and arrow hung next to a shotgun. Nothing about this room strikes him as particularly interesting or exceptional, and Will isn’t sure whether he’s disappointed or relieved. 

       When blood falls onto his face, Will almost thinks that he’s hallucinating again, but Jack seems to see it, too. Wiping the blood off with his shirt sleeve, he glances up to see where it’s dripping from, spotting the crimson liquid pooling on the ceiling. 

       Jack heads up the stairs first, and his shout sends Will scrambling up the stairs. Mounted on antlers, brazenly displayed right in front of the window, is a girl. She can’t be older than twenty, although Will can’t see her face. As Jack calls for an ERT, and then for his team, Will lifts the head with a handkerchief. 

       His hand jolts away, letting the head fall back, when he realizes who’s mounted on these antlers. There had been photos, when processing the scene, of Abigail standing with another girl. A girl who also fit Hobbs profile. While Abigail is with Hannibal, no doubt spending her Saturday morning being bored by useless facts and learning more about cooking than any one person needs to know, or buying overly expensive clothes while they both make incredibly snide remarks about people, Will is staring at her best friend’s dead body. 

       “This is a copy-cat kill,” Will says, working hard to keep his voice steady. “And that was Abigail’s best friend.”

       He knows Jack’s interest has been piqued. 

       “You said you thought Hobbs killed alone. What do you think the odds are that she was randomly chosen?” 

       Swallowing, Will shakes his head. 

       “Very, very slim. And I still think Hobbs _killed_ alone. They have all sorts of forums these days, Jack. He could have been speaking with someone there.”

       “There was nothing in his internet history, Will, not even a sign that he deleted it often. And I don’t know about you, but Hobbs doesn’t strike me as a genius hacker type.” As frustrated as he is by all of this, by Jack’s words, the body in front of him, _everything,_ Jack’s right. 

       “Hobbs must have known the copy-cat, then.” It’s the only thing that makes sense, he decides. “Why else would he spare Marissa until after Hobbs was dead and Abigail was basically gone?”

       “So you think Abigail knew him, too?”

       “That’s not what I said!” Will winces at the volume of his own voice. “The copy-cat wouldn’t want to risk Hobbs’ anger by killing his daughter’s best friend, Jack.”

       The door opens downstairs, signaling that the ERT has arrived, and Will heads back downstairs with Jack while they start to process the scene. Pulling out his phone, he calls Hannibal's house phone before Jack has a chance to stop him, and after the fourth ring, the wrong person answers. 

       “Hello?” Abigail’s voice is timid, like she’s almost not sure she should be the one answering the phone. He’ll have time later to be happy that she’s already comfortable enough with Hannibal’s house to do just that, though.

       “Abigail, I have some bad news, but first I want to make sure you’re not alone. Is Hannibal there?”

       “Yeah, he’s making breakfast,” she tells him, the words shaky. 

       “Good. Now I want you to sit down, okay?”

       There’s silence for a minute, and then:

       “Okay.”

       “We went to your father’s hunting cabin today, and we found another body.” Her sharp intake of breath makes his chest ache in an uncomfortable way, but he files that way for later. “We think it was the copy-cat, but we can’t be sure yet.” There’s no good way to tell her this, Will thinks, so he just goes for it. “Abigail, it was Marissa.”

       She lets out a strangled cry, and Will can hear the sound of the phone hitting the floor, can hear Hannibal’s concerned “Abigail?” He hears the phone rattling. 

       “Will, what is it? What’s wrong?” Hannibal asks, and Will sighs.

       “We think the copy-cat killed again. Jack and I went up to check out the Hobbs’ cabin, and there was a body mounted on one of the largest pairs of antlers in the upstairs room. It’s Marissa, Hannibal.”

       “I see,” is the reply he gets. Which seems like an odd reply, but Will doesn’t really think much of it. Hannibal and empathy don’t really mix well. 

       “We may need you to come up and work on the profile, but I’ll talk to Jack. Either way, I think that, if Abigail wants to, after the funeral, we should clear all her stuff out of her old house. We can store it in the upstairs of mine, if we really need to.” 

       “Very well. I’ll talk with you later, dear,” Hannibal says, which is his polite way of saying, “I have to comfort Abigail, who is currently bawling her eyes out in the kitchen, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to go.”

       As Jack comes closer, Will braces himself for a scolding. He’s pretty sure he broke at least three FBI protocols just in that one phone call. 

       He’d do it again in a heart beat. 

       “How did Abigail take the news?” Jack asks instead, voice calmer than he expected. His father has a history of being irrational, when it comes to his anger. 

       “Like her best friend had been killed right after she lost both her mother and her father. How else was she supposed to take it?”

       “Did she sound surprised, or did she sound betrayed?”

       “Betrayed?” Where was Jack going with all of this?

       “If her father knew the copy-cat, it’s possible that Abigail did as well. Hobbs and his daughter spend a lot of time together. They spent a lot of time together here. She would be the ideal bait, wouldn’t she?” 

       Will puts on his practiced act of avoiding eye contact. Somehow, Jack is so oblivious to his personality that he still buys it. 

       “Hobbs was trying to keep himself from killing his daughter. He wouldn’t bridge the gap like that. He wanted to keep those parts of his life separate.” That’s not the biggest lie he’s ever told, but it’s certainly on the greatest hits album. Hobbs had a pathological need to make his daughter a part of him, while still keeping her alive. The best way for him to do that was to see her as a part of the act, instead of a possible victim. He would want her as close as possible. 

       Good thing Jack couldn’t see Hobbs as clearly as Will could. 

       As his eyes sweep the ground, a shoe print catches his eye. It’s a few days old, long before Marissa Schurr was likely killed, but the cold ground has kept it largely undisturbed. Nearby, and single red hair is stuck in a bush. 

       “Someone else was here.”

 

-

 

_To call the body sitting across from her a man greatly overestimates his humanity. He is a disgusting waste of space, and Persephone wonders not for the first time why she is sitting her, why she is making herself put up with any of this. It has been years, and she is tired of the charade._

_“I would very much like to kill you,” Peresphone tells Archilochus, twirling the knife in her hand._

_“You said it yourself during your husband’s interview,_ princess. _You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.”_

_Her laugh is empty, like the sound of silverware clinking against a glass, like the space between heart beats._

_“Oh, you poor, poor fool,” she mumbles. “What ever made you think I was telling the truth?”_

_There is no fear in Archilochus’ eyes. It’s unsurprising, but leaves her feeling disappointed. She had hoped he would break by now._

_“Then why haven’t you done it already?”_

_“Crossing the rubicon isn’t something I’m ready for, yet.”_

_“And what, exactly, is stopping you?” He starts to move his hands before wincing in pain. She drove knives through them earlier to keep them on the table, allowing herself the illusion that it was all a matter of practicality. “You obviously have no qualms with torture.”_

_“Killing a soul, in a way, is worse that killing a person. In the Overworld, if I kill someone they will simply make their way here. But in this land? There is no after. If I were to kill you, you would cease to exist, and it would be entirely my doing.” She looks down past Archilochus, deep within the Pit. Souls mill about aimlessly, lost even in such a small space._

_“If that’s the only thing that’s stopping you,” he tells her, “then when you’re ready to cross that line, I’d like to be the first.”_

 

-

 

       Walking into the lecture hall for the first time since the death of Garret Jacob Hobbs, Will is shocked when his students stand up and begin applauding. He shouldn’t be, logically. These students are training to be agents, of course they rejoice when a killer is brought to justice. He just wishes they weren’t happy because a man was dead. Killing had always been the ugliest thing in the world. The fact that killing Hobbs felt good disgusted him, dragging disgust through his bloodstream like a virus. It felt like fixing a mistake. It felt right, and Will hated that. 

       “Thank you,” he says, giving them a moment more. “Please stop that.”

       It takes him a moment to get his laptop set up, but dimming the lights, he doesn’t waste any time beginning his lecture. For the first time in years, he has real field experience to draw from, and it’s enthralling. 

       “This is how I caught Garret Jacob Hobbs. It’s his resignation letter. Can anybody see the clue?” Hands shoot in the air, and Will resists the urge to laugh. “There isn’t one. He wrote a letter, left his phone number, but no address. That’s it.” 

       Flipping to the next slide, Will turns around to stare at the crime scene photo. Hobbs stares back at him, eyes glassy and unfocused as only the dead’s eyes are. 

       “Bad book keeping and dumb luck.” 

       It’s hard to tear himself away from the slide, as if even dead, Hobbs still has a hold over him. As if Hobbs is curled up inside him, waiting for a chance to crawl out. 

       “Garret Jacob Hobbs is dead. The question now is how to stop those who his story is going to inspire.” Cassie Boyles’ body fills the screen as he moves on to the next slide. Still, even days from standing in front of her corpse, the suspicious feeling that he’s responsible for her death strikes him, locks his muscles and clings to his mind. “He’s already got one admirer.” The body of Marissa Schurr on the next slide is equally haunting.

       The rest of the lecture continues with minimal mental interruption, until right at the end, when he spots Alana standing right outside the entryway. 

       “Hi,” he says, and it’s the first time they’ve spoken since their spat in Hannibal’s kitchen. 

       “How are you, Will?” she asks, voice sounding like she’s only just realized she hadn’t asked yet. In the aftermath of Hobb’s death, she had never asked. Abigail, she had asked after. But not her own son. 

       “I have no idea,” he tells her with a lopsided smile. “Abigail is grieving but conflicted, given that Marissa decided she was guilty, and with Hannibal still working on the copy-cat profile, I’ve been trying to comfort her, but it’s awkward.”

       “That should change, Will. It takes time to bond with people, even if a traumatic event brought you together.” She takes a deep breath, and Will let’s himself prepare for whatever she’s about to say. “I didn’t want you to be ambushed-“

       “Is this an ambush?” he asks. The last of his students are filing out, and soon they can drop the names. 

       “The ambush is later. Immediately later. Soon to now. When Jack arrives consider yourself ambushed.” 

       As the last students walk out, Jack walks in. 

       “There’s Dad.”

       “How was class?” he asks, forgoing a real greeting. 

       “They applauded. It was inappropriate.”

       “Review board begs to differ. You’re up for a commendation, and they’ve okayed the active return to the field.” Jack sounds proud, and Will allows himself a moment to imagine a world where they grew up as a normal family. Where his dad doesn’t have a wife that’s not his mother. Would he still have ended up married to Hades then?

       Will stops imagining that world almost instantly. Any world where he’s not married to Hades is a world he doesn’t want to think about. 

       “The question is,” his mother starts, “do you want to go back in the field?”

       “I want him back in the field.” Jack says. As it always has been with either of his parents, what he wants is largely irrelevant. “I’ve told the Board I’m recommending a psych eval.”

       Sparing a glance to his mother, Will looks back to Zeus. 

       “I’m related to one psychiatrist I know and married to the other. I’m also thousands of years old. What psychiatrist could possibly give me a credible evaluation?”

       “Hannibal’s,” Alana answers simply, and that throws him for a loop. His husband hadn’t mentioned he was in therapy. “She’s mortal, but she’s aware of our… situation. He began seeing her when I told him the trial was coming to an end, as a way to ease himself into life on Earth.”

       “The Overworld,” Will corrects without thinking. At Demeter’s confused look, he explains. “We call up here the Overworld. And I’m not going to be comfortable with anyone inside my head, but if she can handle Hannibal’s crazy, she can handle mine.” He tries to sound less sarcastic than a thirteen-year-old, but it doesn’t work. 

       “You may be married to the King of the Underworld, but you’ve never killed anyone, Persephone. You’ve always been opposed to playing God, and now, in a way, you have. That’s a lot to digest.”

       “I used to work homicide, and as you mentioned, I’m married to the King of the Underworld. My stomach can handle it.” Jack makes a grumbling noise. 

       “The reason you ‘used to’ work homicide is you couldn’t stomach pulling the trigger. You just pulled the trigger ten times!”

       Will stills, hands moving to grip the edge of his desk. Leaning onto it, he looks past Jack, and he’s not pretending to be uncomfortable with eye contact, this time. 

       “So the psych eval’s not a formality?”

       “It’s so I can get some sleep at night. I asked you to get close to Hobbs; I need to know you didn’t get too close. Abigail Hobbs is currently living with you, so I’d say my concern there isn’t unfounded.”

       “Therapy doesn’t work on us,” Will says, but that argument is weak. 

       “Therapy doesn’t work on _you_ , because you won’t let it. It obviously works on Hades.”

       “I know all the tricks.” Even weaker a defense. 

       Luckily, Alana jumps in. 

       “Bedelia is good at what she does, Will. She may not know what you went through, but she can help you work through it. Why don’t you have a conversation with her?”

       Will doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pushes off his desk, grabs his bag, and starts walking out of the lecture hall. 

       “I need my beauty sleep, Will!” Jack calls after him, and he spares a moment to think that this is a weird time for his father to be invested in his mental health. 

       Then again, he supposes, Will is useful to him now, and Jack has something he wants. 

       Jack can permit Hannibal to stay in the Overworld. 

 

-

 

_Hades is doing inventory of souls when she first begins considering it. She’s lazing in the library, holding a book on medicine in her hand and watching in her minds eye as Hades reads it. While the distraction is pleasant, it isn’t enough to sate her curiosity. Somewhere in this room, she knows, is a book that would tell her how she can kill Archilochus for good. How she could exorcise him from her mind completely, carve out the chunk he has taken and reclaim its wasted space._

_Asking her husband, she decides quickly as she browses through the shelves, is out of the question. He would, of course, delight in helping her explore whatever feelings she is struggling with._

_This is exactly why Hades cannot._

_No, should Persephone decide to kill, it has to be on her own terms. She will not be goaded, she will not be persuaded. If she is to transform into a monster, it is to be a monster of her own becoming. No one will whisper through her chrysalis._

_Logically, she recognizes that she’s likely only delaying the inevitable. Escalation from the intense torture she participates in to murder, be it of a living mortal or of a soul, is hardly a large leap._

_But when she takes that first life, it will be her own choices that bring her to do so. This, she promises herself._

 

-

 

       Arriving at the residence of Doctor Bedelia du Maurier, Will is entirely unsurprised to find it’s immaculate, closer to art than a residence. Now he understands why Hannibal was insistent on remaining her patient, even after her retirement. His husband needed his therapist to be someone he could respect. Dr. du Maurier was obviously smart enough and pretentious enough that Hades could do so. He spares a moment to be jealous before toying with the ring on his hand. If five millennia of separation couldn’t break Hades and himself apart, a mortal certainly couldn’t, no matter how like Hannibal she was. 

       The woman who opens the door is either much younger than he has been lead to believe, has aged like the finest of wines, or is something other than mortal. 

       Given that he knows she’s sixty-two and entirely mortal, Will can only find himself in awe of her, momentarily. 

       “William Graham, I’ve been expecting you for quite some time now. Please, come in.” She steps back, her heels clicking against the tile of the entry way. They’re nice shoes, and she wonders briefly how much they cost. It’s not until she stumbles over her own shoes that Persephone even realizes what has happened, and he quickly shifts back. 

       “Hannibal told me this might happen,” she says, as if shape-shifting is hardly the most surprising thing she’s ever seen. With his husband as a patient, it likely isn’t. Still, he feels embarrassed. His control has been lacking, lately. “If you’d like, I have some clothes that may fit you? This will be best if we’re perfectly honest with each other. I’d prefer you in the body you’re most comfortable in.”

       “I’m comfortable in either,” he says quickly. “Sorry, I think I’m just nervous. The witch trials weren’t kind to me, and I spent a good period in a mental institution in the 1780s.” 

       “All your power, and you allowed yourself to be institutionalized?” Will can’t tell if there’s disdain or curiosity in her voice. 

       “It was easier than dealing with my mother,” Will tells her honestly. 

       “Demeter is an interesting woman, is she not?” Does his mother often speak with this woman, he wonders briefly? It’s something for him to consider in the future. “Come, let’s sit down.” 

       She leads him into a room that’s obviously meant for this, despite Dr. du Maurier’s status as retired, with a pair of floor to ceiling windows and two chairs facing each other. Taking a seat in the chair closest to the windows, Bedelia waits for him to sit before pulling a piece of paper off the table next to her and writing something on the bottom. 

       “What’s that?” he asks, too curious to resist. 

       “Your psychological evaluation. Garret Jacob Hobbs didn’t destroy you. Your father can rest easy knowing he didn’t destroy his daughter’s mind, and we can discuss your issues without the burden of paperwork.”

       “Son,” Will corrects. “In this moment, I’m his son.” 

       “So you’re comfortable with both sets of pronouns as well?” 

       “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

       “Are you male or female, William?” 

       This question stops him, for some reason. He’d never given a great deal of thought to the fact that he switched bodies. It had never been a complicated issue; sometimes he was he, sometimes she was she. As old as he is, it didn’t seem worth fretting over. 

       “Yes, I think, is the answer to that.”

       “Would you like me to refer to you by the gender you present as at the time, then, for simplicity’s sake?” 

       “I can’t imagine Persephone ever finding a reason to show up at your door, but yes, that seems best.”

       Bedelia leans forward in her seat.

       “Do you view Persephone as a separate person, William?”

       “Persephone _is_ a separate person, in a sense. Just as Demeter is not truly Alana Bloom and Zeus is not truly Jack Crawford.”

       “And Hades?”

       This stops him. 

       “My husband is always my husband, no matter his name.”

       “Interesting.” Will doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t care enough to voice this opinion. “Jack Crawford believes you’re troubled. He believes you could find great relief in therapy.” 

       “Jack Crawford doesn’t know a thing about me, and for that matter, neither does Zeus. He’s little more than a sperm donor.”

       “You don’t believe I could help you?”

       “Dr. du Maurier, I’m married to the only person who has ever helped me, psychologically. He’s also the reason I need help. He taught me how to steal into the minds of others, and he’s my way out of the dark places I visit.” 

       “Do you ever blame Hades for this?” 

       Will takes a moment to consider the question. The expected answer, he imagines, would be black and white, either yes or no. 

       The expected answer never seems to apply to his life. 

       “It’s difficult not to, some days.” Before Bedelia can misinterpret his meaning, he continues. “While I asked him to give me this gift, I believe a part of him knew the consequences of my wish. Hades, as you must be aware, rarely does things that won’t benefit him, in some way. The darker side of my gift tied me to him, forced me to see him as a source of comfort.”

       “You view your relationship with an intensely clinical mindset, William. Has this always been the case?”

       “We were separated for five millennia, Dr. du Maurier. I had to develop a way to cope with that. I imagine Hades did as well.”

       Some unreadable expression flits across Bedelia’s face. Will considers asking, but given that it likely would involve a breach in doctor-patient confidentiality, he holds his tongue. 

       “You haven’t asked about Hobbs, yet.”

       “That would be because I’m largely uninterested in Hobbs. I didn’t sign your psychological evaluation preemptively because I wanted to discuss your trauma without affecting your career. I signed it early because the trauma you received shooting Hobbs is likely minimal. Garret Jacob Hobbs is your victim. You killed him. You’ve certainly done worse things, if there’s any truth to my conversations with Hannibal.”

       “I don’t consider Hobbs my victim.” Why would he be? Killing Hobbs had been an ugly necessity, Will tells himself. He ignores the part of him that still feels the righteous fury he felt, the first time he pulled the trigger, the first drip of blood from Hobbs’ body. Hannibal’s conversations with Bedelia interest him more, but he can question his husband later. 

       “What do you consider him, then?”

       “I consider him dead.” 

       Bedelia seems to let these words soak into her. 

       “Killing Hobbs, then, to you, was merely part of your job?”

       It strikes Will where Bedelia is leading him, then. 

       “If you’re trying to ask if I enjoyed killing Hobbs, you can. I’m not a teacup, Dr. du Maurier, I won’t break if you rough me up a little.”

       She regards him for a moment, tilting her head. 

       “I don’t need to ask you that, William. It’s obvious you did not.” 

       Later, pulling into his driveway, Will considers Bedelia’s words, and how Bedelia was certain he hadn’t enjoyed killing Garret Jacob Hobbs, when even he wasn’t certain of this fact. 

       He doesn’t have long to ponder this, though. Abigail decided earlier that week that all of the dogs need to be able to preform a small assortment of tricks, so while Hannibal has already started dinner, when he comes inside, Abigail is sitting on the living room floor where only a few weeks ago, his bed sat. The entire scene is incredibly domestic, and Will lets himself soak in the feeling of calm it brings. 

       Finally, he understands the loyalty people feel towards their family, a feeling neither his mother nor his father ever inspired. 

       Finally, he thinks as he takes his coat off. _Finally._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What coping mechanism do you all think Hannibal developed? What's bedelia's horse in this race?  
> Only Me and Todd know, but you'll find out eventually.  
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com). Hit me up with any questions and comments there, and I'll be 100% happy to talk with you about all things hannibal.


	8. Interlude. I Pray to Blades of Grass (To Find Forgiveness in the Weeds)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alana has 99 problems, and Hannibal Lector is just about all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super duper extra big thank you to todd, [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades), without whom this chapter would have suffered. Bedelia and alana are both beasts to write tbh  
> the song for this title is _not_ from my playlist for this fic, bc it felt weird to write a chapter from Alana's pov using the playlist I have for her son and his husband, the one she doesn't really like. instead, I spent like six hours listening to my music on shuffle, looking for a song, and ended up using [This too shall pass by Danny Schmidt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPkkqxsjIY%20)

_Persephone is born on a warm spring day, and as she lays calmly in Demeter’s arms, she is the picture of perfection. Staring at her round cheeks and eyes unimaginably blue, Demeter knows in that moment that she will do everything she can to protect her daughter. No mortal will touch her, no man will sully her. Sooner would she kill the whole world than let anyone harm her, bringing the plants to their knees and letting the whole world suffocate._

_This possessive feeling never truly fades. For all that Persephone is curious, she is also obedient, at such a young age. A few words about monsters is all that’s needed to keep her daughter’s tiny hand clutched firmly in hers, close enough that Demeter can pull her out of harm’s way at any second, should the need arise. At the age when normal parents teach their kids to understand the world, Demeter understands she must teach her daughter to fear it. If not, one day Persephone might leave. Her daughter is all she has, gentle and kind as only a child can be, and she can’t bear the thought of being without her. Persephone will grow into a magnificent young woman, and she will always be there, will always look to Demeter for guidance._

_This is what mothers do, she tells herself time and time again, ignoring any feeble attempts Zeus makes to see what is, in a sense, his daughter, too. He can’t be allowed to get too close. Demeter knows what happens to his children, when Hera hears of them._

_So she keeps Persephone far away from her father, commanding her to stay inside, if Demeter isn’t there to escort her. And trusting, as children are only with their parents, she listens, contenting herself to draw dogs in the dirt floors and make shadow puppets as she sits in front of the east facing window of their small home just outside the forest._

_This is sustainable, she tells herself time and time again, ignoring the looks Persephone sends towards the woods and the river, the older she gets. All of six, she is growing bold._

_Demeter tells herself she can handle bold._

 

_-_

 

“She needs a psychiatrist, Will,” Alana insists, staring Will down across the table. They’re having lunch, although she’s not sure why Will agreed to this, given how uncomfortable he’s acting. “You’ve all been through a trauma. Hannibal has a psychiatrist, and so do you. Why not Abigail?”

“And let me guess,” he starts, his voice bitter, “you think you’re the most logical choice.”

“I spent years in school just for a dumb piece of paper telling the world that I specialize in family trauma. She’s practically the definition of family trauma, and the way you and Hannibal are moving in to take the place of her family isn’t going to help her, it’s going to cripple her.”

“If we’re going to send her to a psychiatrist, I’d rather she see Bedelia,” Will tells her, and Alana is pretty sure it’s the rudest thing her son has ever said to her. 

“Bedelia, Will? What, are you looking to give her the full collection of family issues?” He shrugs. “She specializes in Gods, Will. She retired in name only, so that she could devote her time to picking apart people like us. Would you like her to try tearing Abigail apart like that?”

“Don’t try to pretend you know what’s best for Abigail, Alana.” He sits forward in his chair. “Abigail doesn’t have anyone.”

“You and Hannibal can’t be her everyone,” she tells him, taking a drink of her water in an attempt to buy herself time to think. She starts to speak, but holds her tongue. “When I said what I was going to say in my head, it sounded insulting. I’ll find another way to say it.” 

As if a switch is flipped, Will becomes more serious than she’s seen him in years. In that moment, she can picture him standing over a body, Hannibal at his side, and the image is so natural it terrifies her. 

“Say it the insulting way,” he demands. 

“Dogs keep a promise a person can’t.”

“I’m not collecting another stray,” Will says with a huff. “You and I both know that was a coping mechanism for the separation _you_ induced.”

“The separation you _agreed_ to.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You did what you wanted to do, Will. And I told you it was insulting.”

“I get it,” he concedes. “I can trust a dog to be a dog, but I can’t trust Abigail to be who I think she is.” There’s a gleam in Will’s eyes as he says it, and Alana resists going into the shiver threatening to run down her spine. 

“Let me reach out to her in my own way,” Alana says, but Will shakes his head. 

“No. _If_ Abigail wants to see a psychiatrist, she’ll be allowed to choose. What Abigail needs right now is to gain control of her life. You’re not good at granting people that, _Mother._ ” The last word is quiet, so hushed that Alana almost can’t hear it over the sound of silverware clinking against plates and muted conversations going on around them. Will says it like an insult, like an accusation, and Alana begins to realize in that moment that even if Hades loses, she’ll never have her daughter back unless she takes drastic action. 

Hades has stolen her daughter from her, all under the veil of polite cooperation and candy-coated deals. Somehow, after their first meeting in the field, Hades convinced Persephone that Alana had done her a great wrong, when all she ever wanted was to protect her daughter.

Alana just needs to help her daughter understand that. It’s with this in mind that she pays the bill and sends Will, reluctantly, into the arms of a monster. 

 

-

 

_Every morning, Demeter speaks kindly to the thorn bushes outside the front door of the house, asking them to close ranks. Then, she walks around the house to each of the windows, and asks the bushes to grow taller, just tall enough that Persephone couldn’t jump out. All of seventeen, Persephone had begun getting ideas about leaving the house recently, and that would hardly do. She wouldn’t last, if she was let out of the house on her own. She knew so little about the world, she was too oblivious. Her head was always in the clouds, she could trip while walking and fall into a ravine. She could get grabbed in the woods by a strange man who would whisk her away, never to be seen again._

_When she comes home one night, though, she discovers that one of the bushes is shorter than normal._

What have you done? _she thinks as she tears at its branches in rage. If it can’t do its job, it doesn’t deserve to have a job, she thinks, throwing the limbs on the ground and watching as tiny leaves fall like flower petals. Persephone could be anywhere by now, could be dead by now, could be-_

Hades, _she hears a nearby tree whisper, its words almost cowering._ She was with Hades.

_And isn’t that a terrifying notion, no matter which way she looks at the phrase. Her daughter, all alone in the Underworld at the mercy of the King of Death. Even as she screams, he could be doing unspeakable things to her, defiling_ her _daughter, ruining her, stealing her. Demeter wastes no time on rational thought, instead climbing back onto her horse and heading for the nearest entrance to the Underworld. Demeter would drag her daughter out of there with her own two hands, if she had to._

 

_-_

 

“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Alana says, head in her hands. “Will killed her father. Bedelia would have told me right after her session with Will, if the Hobbs murder met the terms of the deal, so Hannibal hasn’t won, yet, but letting them keep Abigail even as a temporary measure is only going to make Will feel more dependent on him. This is going to blow up in your face.”

“I don’t give a damn about your deal with my brother, Demeter.” Zeus tells her, sitting calmly behind his desk. ‘I care about catching this copy-cat, and the killer after that, and the killer after that. As long as Persephone can catch killers, she can be married to whoever she wants, and she can have as many kids or dogs as she wants.” 

And of course Jack would take his own side in this fight. He’s supposed to be their ruler, but as always, he’s too busy meddling in the lives of mortals to keep them all in line. How Hera deals with being married to this man, Demeter can’t even begin to comprehend. She considers herself lucky that Bella hasn’t tried to kill Persephone, likely fearful of the wrath of Hades. 

Hades, who as always, was the bane of her existence. 

“And what about Abigail’s well-being? Do you really want to have saved her from her father, only to have her breakdown?”

“As far as I’m concerned, Abigail is best with Hades and Persephone. I’m not convinced that she didn’t help her father kill those girls, Demeter. I think she at least knows where their bodies are. And living with them will lull her into a false sense of security. She’ll crack, and I’ll be able to give seven families peace of mind.”

It’s the dumbest plan Demeter has ever heard, but she doesn’t tell Zeus this. She doesn’t tell him that leaving Abigail with Hades and Persephone will only turn her into a more proficient liar, will only make her less likely to ever tell them anything. If Hades has changed her daughter even half as much as he seems to have, has warped her even the tiniest bit to his will, there is no good ending for this story. Every action she can take to reverse the damage will have to be subtle, and she’ll have to start planning now. But she could do it. Today, she’s dropping a tea cup on the ground, and it will begin to gather itself up on its own. Time doesn’t move backwards, but people can. 

Hades has ruined her daughter, but Demeter will put her back together. 

 

-

 

_When she finds her daughter sitting happily at Hades’ kitchen table, she is enraged. A pomegranate hangs loosely from her hands, fingers pink from the juice, and she’s laughing loudly._

_Demeter hasn’t heard her daughter laugh since she was ten. Hasn’t heard her daughter laugh since she began growing thorn bushes to keep her inside, to protect her from the world. In the caverns of the Underworld, her laugh echoes, filling the room, and the sound haunts her._

_Hades sees her first, his face growing serious, and Persephone follows his gaze, deflating in her seat at the sight of her mother. Demeter watches her whisper something to Hades, and his reply is short._

_Persephone takes another seed out of the fruit, and Demeter is forced to watch as her daughter throws her life away, too far away to stop her and too shocked to cry out. Whatever Hades told her, it pushed her daughter over the edge._

_Demeter screams, hand reaching toward her daughter, but it’s too late._

_Hades keeps his face still, but she knows him well enough to feel the smug air around him._

_Persephone won’t look at her, and Demeter is certain she’s ashamed of her actions, already regretful._

_The argument Demeter has with Hades is explosive, and Persephone stays quiet through all of it._

_A rubicon is passed, and all of them think it is for a different reason._

 

_-_

 

If there was a way to get information out of Bedelia without sitting for a session, she wouldn’t be here. But the blonde held all the power in their agreement, and this was just another way of reminding her of this fact. 

“Will Graham’s part in the death of Garret Jacob Hobbs doesn’t meet the terms of the agreement, you’ll be pleased to hear.” Alana grinds her teeth. She’s not pleased to hear this at all, even though she knew right from the start it would be true. 

“They’ve only been together again for two weeks, and already, Hades has her pulling the trigger. It won’t be long before he wins, Bedelia. I have to plan for every eventuality.”

Bedelia gazes at her with a look of equal parts disdain and curiosity. 

“Most mothers would be pleased to see their children in love, even more so to see them married with children. I wonder what it is that prevents you from this, Alana.” 

“Abigail is hardly their child,” she shoots back, but Bedelia’s smile is far too knowing. 

“That’s not how she sees it. I could tell you more, but that would be a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. I’m certain you understand.”

“Are you formally her psychiatrist?” Alana asks, amazed at how quickly Will moved. They’d only had lunch a few days ago. 

“I am. I may be unwilling to leave my house, but even I seem to be more aware of what’s going on in the world than you are.” The remark bites deeper than it used to. 

“That hardly seems like a fair assessment. There are a great many things I’m aware of that you aren’t.”

“And almost none of them concern your son,” Bedelia replies, her face annoyingly blank.

“Daughter. My daughter.” The _tsk_ is almost out of character, coming from Bedelia. 

“William prefers to be referred to by whichever gender he’s presenting as. Did it never occur to you, to ask?” Her hands tighten in her lap, but Alana keeps her face impassive. 

“Persephone will come to terms with whatever she’s going through after Hades is out of her life.” 

“Zeus says you respect Will’s pronouns, for the most part. Is that a tactical move, Alana?”

“It’s the path of least resistance. I indulge Persephone for now, and help her come to her senses later, when this mess is all over.” Bedelia stands, moving to look out the window, and Alana follows her with her eyes, trying to stay almost unnaturally still. 

“I’d like you to try something, Alana." Bedelia says, looking over her shoulder. "Just a little exercise. In return, I’ll whisper to Will through the chrysalis a little more than normal.” She doesn’t hold her breath. No matter what Bedelia wants, it isn’t going to be good for her. 

“Respect Will’s pronouns for a week, when you think about him. See what this does to your relationship with Will. I think he sees your disrespect more clearly than you think. He may not be a mind reader, but your son is perceptive.”

Alana nods her head slowly before standing herself, grabbing her coat and walking to the door. 

“Until next week, Bedelia.”

“I look forward to it, Alana.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feel free to hit me up on tumblr at [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com)!   
> See you all friday, and have a good day!


	9. I Saw You in My Mind When I Was Younger (And I Grew Older, and I Saw You Still)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Firearms accuracy isn't a requirement for teaching, Will does know a lot about gardening, and he's also going crazy. Not that anyone is going to tell him that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is super late, and we may have to move to an irregular update schedule for a while. I'm up for a promotion at work, and big on that would get me better hours for writing and A LOT better pay but it would also be pretty stressful. I have a ton of training I have to do before then, though, so my writing time is gonna be kind of sporadic. But i'm not orphaning this fic! I'm just going to writing it more slowly and less rigidly, because if I tried to stick to that schedule with everything going on now i might die of stress. Like, right now I'm posting this chapter in the few minutes I have before I have to open the store.  
> The title for this chapter is from [ Out of the Darkness by Matthew & the Atlas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jgleXclGvQ).  
> As always, 1000% thanks to [aglassroseneverfades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades) for making sure i don't fuck this up

       “I’m pretty sure firearm accuracy isn’t a prerequisite for teaching,” Beverly tells him again as he tries and fails to follow her instructions. He’s hitting the target closer to the center than he used to, but Will doesn’t want to leave something like this up to chance. 

       “I’ve been in the field before,” he replies, not sure if it’s a defense or an explanation. In a way, he considers that it might be both. 

       “So now you’re back in the saddle? Ish?”

       “Ish, indeed.” With a groan, Will puts his gun on the table. “It took me ten shots to drop Hobbs.” Looking at the target, Will thinks it might take even more now. How did he manage to get worse in the last few weeks?

       “Zeller wanted to give you the bullets he pulled out of Hobbs in an acrylic case, but I told him you wouldn’t think it was funny.”

       “Probably not,” Will tells her. Hannibal might have tried to put it on his mantle, and that would have been hard to explain to guests. He thinks about how his husband would try to explain it while he clips a new target up. 

       “I suggested he turn them into a Newton’s Cradle. You know, one of those clinking, swinging ball things.” Will laughs, grabbing his gun. 

       “Now that, that would have been funny. Hannibal might have put it on his desk.” He lines up a shot before Beverly has a chance to reply, and whether it’s his haste or his aim, he misses the target completely. 

       “Why do you use the Weaver stance?” Beverly asks, moving closer. “I would have taken you for an isosceles guy.”

       “I have a rotator-cuff issue, so I have to use the Weaver stance.” Beverly’s hand comes up to his shoulder then, pressing down lightly. 

       “You are tight,” she says, taking a step back. 

       “I got stabbed when I was a cop.” This is true, Will thinks, but it’s not where his rotator cuff issue comes from. Beverly doesn’t need to know the whole truth, in this case. Lost in thought, he only hears the tail end of whatever she’s saying. “No lead in a pencil,” he tells her. “It’s graphite.”

       This appears to be an appropriate response, because she just gives a small snort of laughter. 

       “Now you tell me.” There’s a pause before she reaches up to adjust his left elbow. “See if that helps with the recoil.”

       He’s shocked to find that it does. It isn’t that he expected Beverly to give him bad advice; there was a reason he asked for her help instead of anyone else’s. No, that something so small could make all the difference is surprising. As he finishes firing and brings the target back, Beverly’s phone rings. 

       “Hey, Jack, what’s up?” She asks, before turning to look directly at Will. “Yeah, he’s right here. What do you need?” She’s quiet for a moment, obviously listening to Jack’s reply. “Sure, we’ll be right up. See you soon,” she adds before hanging up.

       “What was that about?”

       “No real clue. Jack told me to ask you what you know about gardening.”

 

-

 

_The irony that Persephone is considering murder to help her sleep at night, despite being wholly unwilling to play god in every other situation, including murder, is not lost on her. Sometimes, she makes the choice to be self-serving. This is simply one of those times. It has been months since she has slept soundly, both in the Underworld and the Overworld. She wakes at night afraid of a man who is not his father, shaking from the ways he has not touched her. Beyond all of that, Archilochus_ had _volunteered._

_Finding the right book in Hades’ library took hours, running her hands along spines and selecting books at random, reading until she could put each one in the “helpful” or “unhelpful” pile._

_The book she’s looking for is more worn than she expected, its cover faded from the oil of hands and long nights of reading. How many times has her husband read this book? Was it, each and every time, with purpose?_

_The ritual is simple, in theory. With a knife dipped in the Styx, slit the dead's throat. Throw them into the river, and their soul will dissolve. It’s hardly an advanced ritual._

_Procuring the knife is the easiest part; there was always a lovely selection to choose from in the kitchen, after all. Getting Archilochus from the pit without her husband noticing turns out to be far more difficult, as even when he is in their rooms, he has eyes all over the Underworld._

_Crawling out of bed in the middle of the night, she pads lightly out of their room. This is the only time she can be sure she’ll remain undisturbed._

_“I see you’ve decided to cross the rubicon,” Archicholus says, eyeing the knife in her hand as she approaches him in the pit. The gate unlocks with a wave of her hand, and he follows calmly._

_“In a sense. I see this act as a slaying of my demons, but both are equally true.”_

_He makes a humming noise, clasping his hands behind his back._

_“I’m frightening enough to be a demon to the Queen of the Underworld? However did that come to pass?” Persephone regrets not gagging him, in that moment. Given that she’s going to kill him, though, it seems polite to answer._

_“The market where your daughter worked after your death is the same one my mother takes me to in the Summer. I saw her once, across the square. We made eye contact for only seconds, but it was enough that I knew how she felt, through everything you did to her._

_“I have not slept through the night unaided since. You were the monster in her house, and you have become the monster under my bed.”_

_“And you think killing me will erase my memory?” he asks as they reach the river. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re merely a fool.”_

_“Either way,” she replies, coming behind him to rest the knife on his throat, “you will have your wish of being first.”_

_Strong arms lift her from the waist, then, and the knife falls from her hand. Struggling in their grip, she discovers very quickly that escape will be near impossible._

_“No,” Hades says, “you will not.” He sets her down, picking up the knife and turning to face her. “Would you like him dead?” he asks, his voice eerily calm. Arms crossed over her chest, she doesn’t meet his eyes._

_“I’d like to kill him.”_

_“That isn’t what I asked.” Persephone huffs at his reply._

_“If I’d like to kill him, I think if follows that I’d like him dead.”_

_Hades merely nods, coming up behind Archilochus as she had moments before. He sets the knife against the skin of his throat, pressing so hard that the ghost of blood pools beneath the blade. She can’t stop staring at it, even as it drips down to pool in his collar bones._

_“Would you still like him dead?”_

_“Yes,” Persephone says, but even she isn’t convinced, a shake in her voice. The rage she felt has died from its great burning, and she has lost her careful disconnection from the situation._

_Hades drops the knife from Archilochus’s throat, simply pushing him into the river, that he might be returned to where he belongs. He grabs her hand, then, leading her away._

_They are silent the rest of the night, and that silence is not a comfort._

 

_-_

 

       It’s not until he’s standing at the scene that Will thinks Jack’s joke about gardening is even at all funny. At the crime scene, it’s dark, because he’s staring at bodies covered in fungus and mold, but it’s funny. Standing in the shooting range, Will figured Jack was trying to ask about his mother. 

       “Dr. du Maurier gave you the all clear. I’d say therapy just might work on you, Will.” 

       “Therapy is an acquired taste that I have yet to acquire, but it served your purpose well enough. I’m back in the field. Almost literally.”

       EMTs are moving the bodies one by one from their holes in the ground as they step under the police tape. As Jack tell him about the animal traps and the pesticide, Will wonders what his mother would think about the scene. Beverly, Price, and Zeller are already digging out the last of the victims when Jack and Will reach them. 

       “Seven bodies, various stages of decay, all very well fertilized,” Price tells them as Beverly grabs a handful of dirt and lets out a hum. 

       “He buried them in a high-nutrient compost. Definitely enthusiastically encouraging decomposition.”

       “Patient way to dispose of a body,” Price shoots back. 

       As old as he is, Will likes to imagine that he’s seen everything, sometimes. He’s never seen something like this. 

       “They were buried alive,” Zeller says, looking up from the bodies, “with the intention of keeping them that way. At least for a little while.” 

       Tuning them all out, he runs a hand over his face. Something about an air supply, and the declaration that their killer isn’t lazy. 

       “No, he’s not,” Will agrees, unsure of who he’s agreeing with. Jack seems to notice him losing himself, the slightest bit, because people start waking away, so he’s obviously ordered them to clear the scene. 

       Will is not Will, then, he is the Killer, looking down at the tubes and the dirt, looking down at the man, lying in his grave. The Killer sets up the air supply before moving on to the catheter, and there is dirt on the Killer’s pants but this doesn’t other Him. He’s used to the mess.

_I choose this man. I do not bind his arms or legs as I bury him in a shallow grave. He is alive, but he will never be conscious again._

       There is a shovel in His hand, the wood of the handle old and worn. The Killer has done this before, done this enough that this new shovel will never splinter. This is not His first garden, and it will not be His last. Compost flies from the shovel through the air, and slowly the man and his grave disappear. 

_He won’t know he’s dying. I don’t need him to._

_This is my design._

       One more shovel full, and the body will be covered enough. The Killer looks down at the grave, but this is not His victim. Garret Jacob Hobbs stares back at Him, and the Killer doesn’t know why this name is important, but Will does, and the line is blurred, there is no Will and no Killer but instead a messy mashup of the two. 

       Slowly, the Killer fades, and Will is left staring at a mushroom covered body, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The dead, he’s familiar with. The hallucinations? Still get-

       A hand grasps him, and Will’s heart pounds, his body frozen in place. He would scream, he would move, but every muscle in his body is locked until Beverly helps him stand, pulling him away while Price and Zeller look over the body in the grave. 

       An emergency session with Dr. du Maurier is in order, Will decides when his breathing returns to normal and he can’t hear his blood pumping. A session as soon as she can see him. 

 

-

 

_Hades’ hasn’t brought up her indiscretion yet, but Persephone knows it’s only a matter of time before he attempts to broach the subject. After coming so close, certainly he’d want her to cross the line, to do what she said she never would._

_When he finally does bring it up, it’s after dinner, while they’re lounging in the library._

_“I think perhaps we should take a break from your list,” Hades says, and Persephone stills._ No, _she thinks,_ surely he doesn’t mean that? _But his face is blank, no hint of a wry smile for her to read sarcasm from. “Clearly it is pushing you too close to a line you wish not to cross. I fear I have already caused enough harm, by encouraging you to participate.”_

_There is something not entirely truthful about his words, but given that all of last night was, in a way, deception on her part, she allows him this small indiscretion._

_“If we pause now, we’ll never finish.”_

_“There was never hope of finishing, dear,” Hades tells her. “You never wanted to be finished.”_

_Persephone buries her head in her book and ignores him._

_“You’ve never been childish, dear. There’s no reason for you to start now.”_

_She stays silent._

_“If continuing is that important to you, perhaps we can make a deal.”_

_She looks up, ignoring his plea for her maturity and hiding most of her face behind her book._

_“If we sit down once a week to discuss your state of mind, so that I can assure you’re stable, I’ll allow us to continue working our way through your list.”_

_Persephone doesn’t trust herself to speak with a level voice, so she nods in agreement instead._

 

_-_

 

       When Dr. du Maurier opens the door, Will doesn’t even give her a moment to greet him properly before he hands her his psych eval. It’s rude, and he knows it’s rude, but what happened earlier rattled him more than he’s comfortable with. 

       “This may have been premature,” he tells her, stepping inside, but not yet taking his coat off. 

       “What makes you think that?” she asks, leading him into her office. “Did you see something while you were out in the field?”

       Did he see something? Can you see something that you know isn’t real, or just imagine it? 

       The answer to that doesn’t really matter. 

       “Hobbs.”

       “An association?” Dr. du Maurier seems to be interested now, if the slight tick of her head is any indication. 

       “A hallucination. I saw him lying there, in someone else’s grave.”

       “Did you tell anyone what you saw?”

       “No,” Will tells her, wondering why he didn’t. Jack was right there. What stopped him? Shouldn’t Jack know, if there was something wrong with him? What stopped him from telling Jack when he hallucinated Elise Nichols in autopsy? Why didn’t he say anything to Hannibal, after his target at the range became Hobbs, and then Archilochus?

       “It’s stress,” she tells him, sounding almost bored. “Not worth reporting. You likely had a simple misfire in your brain, causing you to displace the victim of another killer with your own victim.”

       “We’ve already been over this, Dr. du Maurier. Hobbs wasn’t my victim. He was a part of the job.”

       “Then that isn’t what this vision you saw is about.” She pauses, looking away for a moment, as if trying to free Will from eye contact. “Tell me, William. Is it harder to imagine the thrill somebody else feels killing, now that you’ve finally done it yourself? Even after so long living among the dead?”

       His throat is dry as he swallows and weakly nods his head.

       “Yes.”

       “Good. Your honesty is important here, Will. Is this the first time you’ve admitted this truth to yourself?” He nods weakly. “Is this the first time you’ve hallucinated?” Dr. du Maurier seems to sense his sudden stillness. “Were you ever going to mention these other times?” Will can’t even breathe, he’s so tense. “Very well. We’ll pick up this conversation during our next scheduled session, but for now, I believe you’ve done enough. I have a patient arriving shortly, and she prefers not to let the world know who she is yet. She’s enjoying masquerading as a mortal to the fullest extent.”

       Finally, Will can breathe. Maybe it’s how Dr. du Maurier dismisses him, or maybe it’s that he’s not expected to answer any of her last questions. Will is grateful either way, standing stiffly and showing himself out. 

 

-

 

_“How did you feel, as you held the knife against Archilochus’s throat?” Hades asks, voice level, as if they’re discussing what to have for dinner tonight, and not her feelings on attempted murder. She’s laying down on a bench in the library, while he sits on a chair behind her._

_“I felt alive,” she tells him, but this is not quite the truth. She felt alive, but she also felt something else, an indescribable rush of power and weakness in equal measure. The knife in her hand, the smell of the first drips of blood down his pale neck, these made her feel as if she could destroy worlds._

_“And after, when I had the knife against his throat?”_

_This is a harder question for her to answer. In that moment, she was a ball of conflicting emotions._

_“I felt… guilty, perhaps. Ashamed that I had done this all behind your back. And hopeful, so very hopeful, that you would pull the knife deep into his flesh.”_

_“What would killing Archilochus have truly accomplished? Would it have really helped you sleep at night?”_

_“I believe so,” she tells him, closing her eyes as she imagines it. The bright red blood flowing down that sick man’s body, staining him and tainting him. The splash as he was pushed into the water, quickly becoming nothing at all. It’s clear in her mind, and it’s a comforting image._

_“And when you meet the next despicable man? The next person to haunt your dreams? Will you kill them as well? Rip them from the Overworld, even?”_

_Persephone doesn’t answer him, because her immediate answer is yes, and isn’t that a wholly terrifying thought._

 

_-_

 

       “The arms,” Hannibal says, looking over the crime scene photos spread out on the kitchen table. Abigail is in the living room, surrounded by the dogs and reading some book on advanced psychology as light reading, because apparently she’s already got half of college out of the way through advanced credit. “Why did he leave them exposed. To hold their hands? Feel the life leaving their body?”

       Will shakes his head, standing back from the table to lean against the wall. 

       “That’s too esoteric for someone who took the time to bury his victims in a straight line. He’s more practical than that. This wasn’t about the murder, it was about something that came after.”

       Hannibal seems to consider this, shifting photos and reports around until he comes across the one about soil composition, taking a moment to read it. 

       “He was cultivating them?”

       “He was keeping them alive, at least. Feeding them fluids intravenously. But I don’t think it was about the bodies.” 

       Their eyes meet as Hannibal laughs. 

       “I should hope not. If so, your farmer let his crops die, save for one.”

       “And that one died on the way to the hospital. No, I don’t think they were the crops. I think they were the fertilizer. The bodies were covered in fungus.” Will moves to the table again, looking at photo after photo of different varieties of mushrooms. When Hannibal comes up behind him, Will just leans back into him, pulling his husband’s arms around his waist. 

       “Mycelium kill forests over and over, building deeper soil to grow larger and larger trees.” Hannibal says, lips brushing against his ear. They’re closer, but something is still missing.

       “If it were just about the soil, why would he bother keeping the victims alive? Unconscious, sure, but definitely alive.”

       “The structure of a fungus mirrors that of the human brain,” Hannibal muses. “An intricate wave of connections.”

       “Maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human minds can’t.”

       “Yours can.” Hannibal says this, and Will can’t help but laugh.

       “Not physically, it can’t. And not with reciprocity.”

       “A fact I often find myself saddened by.” A pause. “Is that what your farmer is looking for? Some sort of connection?”

       “God,” Will says. “I hope not. Why can’t he just try online dating like the rest of the world?”

       “Or maybe just standing in a field?” Hannibal suggests. “I’m told that for some people, it has a high rate of success.”

       Will laughs, allowing himself to be distracted from the case and pulled into the living room. He’ll text Jack Hannibal’s idea about their killer later. Now, he has more important things to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, who knows when the next chapter will come??? NOT ME, that's for sure. I've already got most of it plotted, and it's an interlude, so it's shorter, but??? WHO KNOWS  
> You can always hit me up on tumblr @ [Quadratic-and-Problematic](quadratic-and-problematic.tumblr.com). See y'all when I see you!


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